President Nicolás Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election, according to partial results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE). Elvis Amoroso, the head of the CNE and a close ally of Mr. Maduro, reported that with 80% of the ballots counted, President Maduro secured 51% of the vote, while his main rival, Edmundo González, received 44%.
The Venezuelan opposition has dismissed the CNE’s announcement as fraudulent and vowed to challenge the result. They claim that their candidate, Edmundo González, actually won with 70% of the votes and insist he is the rightful president-elect. According to the opposition, vote tallies, exit polls, and quick counts all indicated that Mr. González had a substantial lead of 40 percentage points over the incumbent president.
Opposition parties had united behind Mr. González in an effort to unseat President Maduro, who has been in power for 11 years. Opinion polls conducted before the election suggested that Mr. González would decisively defeat President Maduro.
The outcome of this election will have significant repercussions beyond Venezuela, a country of 29.4 million people. Over the past decade, 7.8 million people have fled Venezuela due to the severe economic and political crisis that has unfolded under the Maduro administration.