Venezuela confirms Nicolas Maduro as president. With 80% of the ballots counted, the incumbent president obtained 5,150,092 votes, while his direct opponent Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained 4,445,978, or 44.02%. The announcement came from the National Electoral Council six hours after the polls closed. The voter turnout was 59%. The CNE also denounced “an attack on the system that caused delays.” The head of US diplomacy for Latin America, Brian Nichols, called for “guaranteeing transparency and access to all political parties and civil society in the vote count.” Maduro promised to recognize and defend the result published by the electoral body. “I recognize and will recognize the result of the elections, the official ballots and will ensure that they are respected,” he said on Sunday.
The reaction
“They did not succeed with sanctions, with aggression, with threats. They did not succeed now and they will never succeed in the dignity of the Venezuelan people. Fascism in Venezuela, the country of Bolívar and Chávez, will not pass,” Maduro said, celebrating with thousands of supporters gathered in front of the Miraflores Palace. “Chávez lives. Chávez, this triumph is yours,” he added, recalling that yesterday, election day, was his seventieth birthday. He then announced that a computer attack had taken place within the Electoral Council: “We know who did this. They did it because they wanted to prevent the Venezuelan people from knowing the official results. To be able to shout what they had prepared, 'to shout fraud.' Ugly people, ugly people, beautiful people are here with me. “And again: “We have already seen this film with Capriles, there were deaths because of them. We will not allow them to unleash violence. The voice of peace has prevailed. Do not let yourselves be attracted by violence.”
The opposition: we won
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, however, decided not to recognize the result. Declaring that “the new president-elect” of Venezuela is Ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, despite the Electoral Council's announcement of Nicola Maduro's victory. The anti-Chavista force proclaimed that it had “won with 70% of the vote.” “I will fight to impose the truth. The truth and popular sovereignty must prevail,” Machado said, claiming to have “independent” data on exit polls and other studies that give an overwhelming advantage to the opposition. “We all know what happened today, the people know it, the international community knows it and they know it themselves,” he said. “We want to tell all Venezuelans that Venezuela has a new president and his name is Edmundo González Urrutia. “We won and everyone knows it,” he said. “We won in all sectors of the country and in all states,” Machado added.
A bloodbath
A few days earlier, Maduro himself had warned that an opposition victory could trigger a “bloodbath”. On election day, the regime denounced the “intervention” against the presidential vote by a group of nine Latin American countries “and foreign powers”. Argentine President Javier Milei, on the other hand, announced that his country “will not recognize another fraud” in Venezuela. Adding that the citizens of that country “have chosen to end the communist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro”. And the former deputy of the United Democratic Platform Delsa Solórzano reported irregularities in the vote to the Electoral Council. “I report it with the evidence in hand. They are delaying the transmission of data to the calculation center and the publication of the minutes. There are a significant number of polling stations from which our witnesses are evacuated and others where they refuse to transmit the results of the count.”
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