Caracas Venezuela — Venezuela’s opposition and President Nicolás Maduro’s government were locked in a high-stakes standoff after each side claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential election, which millions in the long-suffering nation saw as their best chance to end 25 years of single-party government.
Several foreign governments, including the United States, delayed recognizing the results as election officials delayed publishing detailed vote counts after proclaiming Maduro the winner with 51% of the vote, compared to the retired diplomat’s 44%. Edmundo González.
“Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking from Tokyo, said the United States has “serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or votes of the Venezuelan people.”
Gabriel Boric, Chile’s leftist leader, said: “The Maduro regime should understand that the results it published are difficult to believe.”
Meanwhile, on the streets of Caracas, a mixture of anger, tears and loud banging of pots and pans greeted the announcement of the results by the National Electoral Council controlled by Maduro.
“This is not possible,” said Ayari Padrón, wiping away tears. “This is a humiliation.”
Voters lined up before dawn to cast their ballots on Sunday, raising opposition hopes that it was close to breaking Maduro’s grip on power.
The official results surprised opposition members who had celebrated, online and outside some voting centers, what they believed was a landslide victory for González.
“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as a representative of the opposition campaign emerged from a voting center in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas to announce results showing that González far surpassed Maduro. . vote count. Dozens of people nearby broke out into an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.
“This is the path to a new Venezuela,” Fernández added, holding back tears. “We are all tired of this yoke.”
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado He said González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming,” based on vote counts the campaign received from representatives located in approximately 40% of the polls.
Authorities delayed publishing results from each of the 30,000 polling stations across the country, promising to do so only in the “next few hours,” hampering attempts to verify the results.
González was the most unlikely of the opposition’s standard-bearers. The 74-year-old retired diplomat was unknown until he was chosen in April as a last-minute replacement for opposition powerhouse Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court from running for any office for 15 years.
The delay in announcing a winner, which came six hours after polls were supposed to close, indicated a deep debate within the government about how to proceed after Maduro’s opponents emerged early in the evening all but declaring victory.
After finally claiming to have won, Maduro accused unidentified foreign enemies of trying to hack the voting system.
“This is not the first time they have tried to violate the peace of the republic,” he told a few hundred supporters at the presidential palace. He did not provide any evidence to support the claim, but promised “justice” for those who try to provoke violence in Venezuela.
The election will have a ripple effect throughout the American continent, as both opponents and supporters of the government will signal their interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes in search of opportunities abroad in should Maduro win another six-year term.
Authorities timed Sunday’s elections to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crushing wages, fueling hunger, crippling the oil industry and separating families due to migration.
The opposition managed to align behind a single candidate after years of intra-party divisions and electoral boycotts that torpedoed his ambitions to topple the ruling party.
The Maduro-controlled Supreme Court prevented Machado from running for any office for 15 years. A former legislator, she swept the October opposition primaries with more than 90% of the vote. After she was prevented from joining the presidential race, she chose a university professor as her replacement on the ballot, but the National Electoral Council also prohibited her from registering. It was then that González, a newcomer to politics, was elected.
Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once boasted the most advanced economy in Latin America. But it went into free fall after Maduro took command. The fall in oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that exceeded 130,000% caused first social unrest and then mass emigration.
Economic sanctions The United States’ efforts to oust Maduro from power after his 2018 re-election, which the United States and dozens of other countries condemned as illegitimate, only deepened the crisis.
Maduro’s speech to voters in these elections was one of economic security, which he tried to sell with stories of entrepreneurship and references to a stable exchange rate and lower inflation rates. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the economy will grow 4% this year, one of the fastest in Latin America, after having contracted 71% between 2012 and 2020.
But most Venezuelans have not seen any improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford essential items. Some work second and third job. A basket of basic products, enough to feed a family of four for a month, costs approximately $385.
The opposition has tried to take advantage of the huge inequalities arising from the crisis, during which Venezuelans abandoned their country’s currency, the bolivar, for the US dollar.
González and Machado focused much of their campaign on Venezuela’s vast interior, where the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years failed to materialize. They promised a government that would create enough jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad back home and reunite with their families.
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Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report.
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