Venezuela keeps facing domestic and outside challenges after incumbent president, Nicolas
Maduro was
declared winner in presidential contest
and won a third term starting next year
.
Protests
broke out across Venezuela
on July 29,
with police and protesters clashing on the streets of Caracas and elsewhere
in the country,
a day after
i
ncumbent president, Nicolas
Maduro,
was declared winner
in a high-stakes election.
T
ensions started to rise after
Maduro
was declared the winner
in the early hours of July 29. O
pposition parties said their own count showed a clear victory for
Edmundo Gonzalez.
Venezuelans voted on July 28 in a hotly-contested presidential election. The leading candidates were
Maduro
, who has been in power since 2013, and retired diplomat
Edmundo
Gonzalez, who
represented the Democratic Unity Platform, a coalition of parties. He was chosen in April to replace Maria Corina Machado, a conservative former lawmaker who was blocked from running in any election for 15 years by
Venezuela’s
Supreme Tribunal of Justice.
Protesters and opposition parties say the results are
not accurate, a
nd leaders from some countries in
the Americas
also questioned the
outcome
. On
July 29
,
Maduro’s
government said it was suspending diplomatic relations with Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
Leaders from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico all called for transparency.
The Organization of American States (OAS) said its permanent council w
ould be meeting
on July 31
to discuss
the
Venezuela
situation
.
Venezuela
‘
s
National Electoral Council (CNE) said
Maduro
had secured 5
1.2
percent of the vote, ahead of Gonz
alez who received 44.2
percent
.
Alvis
Amoroso
, the head of the CNE,
announced that
some 9 million people had voted, out of 17 million who were eligible.
Venezuela typically does two counts
of votes
, one of electronic
results sent to the CNE and another of paper tallies at individual polling stations
that record votes at each voting machine
. The paper tallies in many polling stations were said
not released
on time
.
Opposition parties and
observers have said that, without th
ose tallies,
it would be impossible to verify the results
.
Maduro
accused the opposition leaders of hacking electoral systems
.
Maduro
is the hand-picked successor of Hugo Chavez, a populist former p
resident who died in 2013. Their United Socialist Party
has
been in power for a quarter of a century.
If
the results hold,
Maduro’s
next six-year term starts in 2025.
He
went into the election trailing in opinion polls,
with opposition parties blaming him for an economic contraction.
In statements
after the election results were announced
,
Maduro
celebrated his victory and said the election marked a
”
triumph of
peace and stability
”
.
There were eight other candidates on the ballot but only Gonza
lez posed any real challenge to
Maduro
.
Still,
the reactions were mixed,
and t
ension built through the day
.
”
You can imagine there’s a lot of confusion, sadness, and total silence. That’s the atmosphere,
”
said
Norely
Rivas, a homemaker in Caracas.
“Around noon, videos started coming in from people, and yes, there were pot-banging protests in many areas of Caracas after a long silence in the morning because most people were deeply affected by the results
,
”
she said.
Maduro
took power in 2013
after the death of Chavez.
He
has said that he
”
plans to advance the diversification of the economy away from oil dependence, promote small and medium-sized enterprises and maintain state control over strategic resources
,
” Vielma noted
.
Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world and was once one of the
continent
‘
s
richest economies,
but
under heavy sanctions by the United States,
falling oil prices
and hyperinflation
— which
topped out at
130,000
percent in 2018 but has since falle
n
to about 50 percent per year
—
have taken their toll
.
The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.