Backlash looms over ‘sham vote’

VENEZUELA faced growing international isolation and a deepening economic crisis Monday following President Nicolas Maduro’s (pictured) re-election as the United States tightened the screws on his regime over a “sham” vote.

Washington’s stern reaction further ratcheted up the pressure on the leftist Mr Maduro, after the Lima Group’s 14 mainly Latin American members moved to recall their ambassadors in protest at the opposition-boycotted vote.

G20 countries Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and the US said they would not recognise the result and would evaluate sanctions measures.

Branding the election “illegitimate,” the six countries said on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Buenos Aires that they were “considering possible political, diplomatic and financial sanctions against the authoritarian regime of Maduro”.

Addressing cheering supporters outside Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Mr Maduro celebrated his election to another six-year term as a “historic record”, after officials credited him with 68 per cent of votes cast, far ahead of the 21 per cent for his nearest rival, ex-army officer Henri Falcon.

The fresh mandate installs him in the presidency until 2025. But with Venezuela’s long-suffering population enduring an economic crisis marked by food and medicine shortages, violent unrest and a mass exodus by hundreds of thousands, the vote was marred by historic 52 per cent abstention, and boycotted by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) opposition coalition as a “farce.”

Washington echoed that assessment, with Vice-President Mike Pence denouncing the vote as a “sham” and “illegitimate”.

Mr Falcon, a loyalist of the late leftist leader Hugo Chavez who was neck-and-neck with Mr Maduro in pre-election polls, says the vote lacked “legitimacy” and accused the government of vote buying.