By Mariela Nava, Mircely Guanipa and Vivian Sequera
CARACAS/MARACAIBO/MARACAY, Venezuela (Reuters) -Protesters gathered in towns and cities across Venezuela on Monday after President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in a tense weekend election, despite growing evidence of a resounding win for the opposition.
During the afternoon crowds appeared in urban streets, as well as outside national electoral authority (CNE) offices across Venezuela.
The CNE said just after midnight that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of the vote, a result that would extend a quarter-century of socialist rule. Later it proclaimed Maduro president for 2025 to 2031, adding he had won “the majority of valid votes.”
But governments in Washington and elsewhere cast doubt on the results and called for a full tabulation of votes.
Independent exit polls pointed to a landslide win for the opposition following enthusiastic shows of support for its presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on the campaign trail.
“We’re fed up with this, we want freedom, we want to be free for our children,” motorcycle taxi driver Fernando Mejia, 41, told Reuters as he marched in the city of Maracay with his family.
The street protests followed earlier “cacerolazo” demonstrations – a traditional Latin American protest in which people bang pots and pans – in neighborhoods throughout the country. Many of those marching had taken their pots with them.
In the Caracas neighborhood of El Valle, police fired tear gas in a bid to disperse protesters.
In Coro, the capital of Falcon state, protesters tore down a statue depicting late president Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s mentor. Earlier, there were scuffles between opposition and government supporters at polling sites in Caracas and other places.
Gonzalez won 70%, said Machado, who has been barred from holding public office in a decision she says is unfair.
Rules were violated on polling day, the opposition said, citing its witnesses being prevented from attending counts, among other issues.
U.S nonprofit the Carter Center, who sent observers to Venezuela for the vote, called on the electoral authority to immediately publish the results by polling station.
The electoral authority is meant to be an independent body but the opposition says it acts as an arm of Maduro’s government.
Gonzalez has not called for supporters to take to the streets and has warned against violence, even as reports trickled in of arrests and intimidation of his supporters.
Many Venezuelan voters despaired at news of another six-year term for Maduro, who has presided over an economic collapse, the migration of about a third of the population, and a sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations, crowned by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
“Maduro yesterday shattered my greatest dream, to see my only daughter again, who went to Argentina three years ago,” said retiree Dalia Romero, 59, in Maracaibo. “I stayed here alone with breast cancer so that she could work there and send me money for treatment.”
“Now I know that I’m going to die alone without seeing her again,” she said through tears.
INTERNATIONAL REACTION
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had serious concerns that the official results did not reflect the votes of the people.
Biden administration officials, briefing reporters about the vote on condition of anonymity, accused the government of “electoral manipulation”. They did not announce any new punitive measures but left open the door to additional sanctions.
Brazil and the European Union also called for transparency over polling data, while Russia, Cuba, Honduras and Bolivia cheered Maduro’s alleged victory.
Caracas and Washington have had an adversarial relationship dating back to the era of left-wing populist Chavez.
Maduro – a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister – took office on Chavez’s death in 2013 and his 2018 reelection is considered fraudulent by the United States and others, who call him a dictator.
Venezuela’s bonds and those of state oil firm PDVSA fell deeper into distressed territory on Monday.
CUTTING THE CAKE
Maduro early on Monday reiterated his campaign assertion that Venezuela’s electoral system is transparent.
He will sign a decree on Monday to hold a “great national dialogue,” he said as he celebrated with supporters before cutting a birthday cake for Chavez, who would have turned 70 on Sunday.
Venezuela’s attorney general Tarek Saab said the results had been delayed by an attack on the electoral system from North Macedonia. He did not offer any evidence or any other details.
Edison Research, which conducts high profile election polling in the United States and other countries, published an exit poll showing Gonzalez, a 74-year-old ex-diplomat known for his calm demeanor, had won 65% of the vote, while Maduro won 31%.
“The official results are silly,” Edison’s Executive Vice President Rob Farbman told Reuters in an email, saying it stood by the results of its survey.
Edison’s exit poll was conducted nationwide with preliminary data from 6,846 voters interviewed at 100 polling locations.
Local firm Meganalisis said its own exit poll indicated a 65% vote for Gonzalez and just under 14% for Maduro.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center suspended a statement it had planned for Tuesday. A source said further information would not be released until its final report on the election.
The opposition and poll observers had raised questions ahead of the vote as to whether it would be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of opposition staff were meant to create obstacles.
Last week, Machado had called on the country’s military to uphold the results of the vote.
But Venezuela’s military has long supported Maduro and there have been no public signs that leaders of the armed forces were breaking from the government.
(Reporting by Mariela Nava in Maracaibo, Vivian Sequera, Julia Symmes Cobb, Deisy Buitrago and Mayela Armas in Caracas and Mircely Guanipa in Maracay; Additional writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Peter Graff and Rosalba O’Brien)
