Victorious Maduro presses opposition for talks
VENEZUELA’S leftist leader Nicolas Maduro has won a new six-year term and called on opposition groups to solve the country’s political crisis through dialogue.
President of the National Electoral Council Tibisay Lucena announced that Maduro 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.
“They underestimated me,” Maduro told cheering supporters on a stage outside Miraflores presidential palace in downtown Caracas as fireworks sounded and confetti fell on the crowd.
Turnout at the election was 46.1 percent, the election board said, way down from the 80 percent registered at the last presidential vote in 2013.
Maduro’s main rivals disavowed the election alleging massive irregularities. “The process undoubtedly lacks legitimacy and as such we do not recognize it,” said Falcon, a 56year-old former state governor, looking downcast.
Maduro had welcomed Falcon’s candidacy, which gave legitimacy to the election process.
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.
Many 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.
According to Falcon, 87.6 percent of voting stations were close to so-called “red points,” government-organized centers used to mobilize the vote in favor of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, though he provided no proof to back up the claim.
“In addition, we have 91,732 complaints” from Falcon supporters “who were not allowed to access voting stations,” the rival candidate said.
A third presidential candidate, evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, followed Falcon in slamming irregularities during Sunday’s vote. However, Bertucci told reporters at a press conference: “If the results are very close, we are going to contest them, if the margin is very wide, we will have to concede.”
Maduro’s tally, however, fell short of the 10 million votes he had said throughout the campaign he wanted to win. In the poorer regions where the majority of voters interviewed said they were backing Maduro.
“I’m hungry and don’t have a job, but I’m sticking to Maduro,” said Carlos Rincones, 49, in the once-thriving industrial city of Valencia, accusing right-wing business owners of purposefully hiding food and hiking prices.
Many Venezuelans are also disillusioned and angry: they criticize Maduro for economic hardships and the opposition for its dysfunctional splits.
Victory for the 55-year-old former bus driver, who replaced Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer in 2013, means a tough time as the government grapples with a ruinous economic crisis.
Maduro says he is battling an “imperialist” plot to take over Venezuela’s oil. Opponents say he has destroyed a oncewealthy economy and ruthlessly crushed dissent. Reeling from a fifth year of recession, falling oil production and US sanctions, Venezuela is seeing growing levels of malnutrition and hyperinflation, and mass emigration.