Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro won a new six-year term on Sunday, but his main rivals disavowed the election alleging massive irregularities, Reuters informed. Maduro replaced Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer in 2013, and his reelection could trigger new western sanctions against the socialist government as it grapples with a ruinous economic crisis.
President Donald Trump’s administration is threatening moves against Venezuela’s already reeling oil sector. According to Venezuela’s election board run by Maduro loyalists, he took 5.8 million votes versus 1.8 million for his closest challenger Henri Falcon, a former governor who broke with an opposition boycott to stand.
According to the election board, turnout at the election was just 46.1 percent, way down from the 80 percent registered at the last presidential vote in 2013. The opposition noted that figure was inflated, putting participation closer to 30 percent.
“The process undoubtedly lacks legitimacy and as such we do not recognize it,” said Maduro’s opponent Falcon, a 56-year-old former state governor.
Maduro had welcomed Falcon’s candidacy, which gave some legitimacy to a process critics at home and around the world had condemned in advance as the “coronation” of a dictator. However, the latter’s quick rejection of Sunday’s election, and call for a new vote, is a blow to the government’s strategy.
Falcon, a former member of the Socialist Party who went over to the opposition in 2010, said he was outraged at the government’s placing of nearly 13,000 pro-government stands called “red spots” close to polling stations nationwide.
Mainly poor Venezuelans were asked to scan state-issued “fatherland cards” at red tents after voting in hope of receiving a “prize” promised by Maduro, which opponents said was akin to vote-buying. The “fatherland cards” are required to receive benefits including food boxes and money transfers.
A third presidential candidate, evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, followed Falcon in slamming irregularities during Sunday’s vote and calling for a new election.
Despite his unpopularity over a national economic meltdown, Maduro benefited on Sunday not just from the opposition boycott but also from a ban on his two most popular rivals and the liberal use of state resources in his campaign, Reuters notes.
His tally, however, fell short of the 10 million votes he had said throughout the campaign he wanted to win.
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