Caracas May 21 (TNS): Venezuelan officials declared socialist leader Nicolas Maduro the easy winner of Sunday’s presidential election, while his leading challenger questioned the legitimacy of a vote marred by irregularities and called for a new ballot to prevent a brewing social crisis from exploding.
Nicolas Maduro has been declared the winner of Sunday’s presidential election, which saw a 46.1 percent turnout, according to Venezuela’s electoral council, after the opposition branded the vote a fraud and called for a boycott.
According to Russia today’s report, With 92.6 percent of the vote counted, Maduro has won the presidential election with 5,823,728 of the votes, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena announced. His main adversary, Henri Falcon of the Progressive Advance party, obtained 1,820,552 votes; while the independent candidate Javier Bertucci won 925,042 votes.
“How much have they underestimated our revolutionary people, and how much have they underestimated me,” Maduro told a late-night crowd in front of the presidential palace. “And here we are, victorious.”
Over eight million Venezuelans participated in the election, which witnessed a low 46.1 percent participation rate after opposition parties called for a boycott of the election, declaring them a “fraud.”
“The process undoubtedly lacks legitimacy and as such we do not recognize it,” Falcon proclaimed, even before the election results were announced. The candidate claimed that the vote was full of irregularities and totally rigged in favour of Maduro because the mainstream opposition promoted abstention, leaving Falcon without potential voters.
On Friday, the US Treasury seemingly tried to sway public opinion and the result of Sunday’s vote by officially linking Maduro to the drug trade, accusing the country’s “second most powerful man,” Diosdado Cabello, of running a narcotics ring and sharing profits with the president. While a senior State Department official warned that the U.S. might press ahead on threats of imposing crippling oil sanctions on the nation that sits atop the world’s largest crude reserves.
Maduro, who himself is subject to US sanctions, repeatedly slammed Washington’s punitive measures as part of a broader campaign aimed at overthrowing his government.
courtesy: Russia today
