Nicolas Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela‘s presidential election.
Maduro has warned citizens there would be a ‘bloodbath’ were he to lose, secured re-election for the third time with 51.2 percent of votes, while opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia received 44.2 percent, the electoral council announced.
MADURO’S TRIUMPH SPEECH
The 61-year-old addressed supporters at the presidential palace minutes after the announcement, declaring: ‘I can say, before the people of Venezuela and the world, I am Nicolas Maduro Moros, the re-elected president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
‘There will be peace, stability, and justice. Peace and respect for the law.’
THERE ARE DOUBTS
But Venezuela’s opposition coalition insisted it had garnered 70 percent of the vote, rejecting the figures from Maduro’s loyalist electoral authority.
Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves also denounced the official result as ‘fraudulent,’ while Chile’s president described it as ‘hard to believe.’
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Peru announced it had recalled its ambassador for consultation over the results, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed ‘serious concerns’ that the result did not reflect the will of Venezuelan voters.
Independent polls had predicted Sunday’s vote would bring an end to 25 years of ‘Chavismo,’ the populist movement founded by Maduro’s socialist predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chavez.
