Maduro denies vote fraud claims

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is going ahead with the inauguration of a powerful new assembly, albeit with a 24-hour delay, even though the British firm hired to handle the vote said the turnout figure given by his government was too high.

Attorney-General Luisa Ortega, an outspoken critic of Maduro, said she had opened an investigation into what she called scandalous electoral fraud.

The opposition said it would go ahead yesterday with a big march against the news assembly, even though the actual swearing in has been put off until today.

Maduro denied the accusations of trampling on democracy in Venezuela with Sunday’s controversial election for an all-powerful “Constituent Assembly”, dismissing them as a “reaction by the international enemy”.

The technology firm hired to handle the vote, Smartmatic, said in a London news conference that the official figures from the election were “tampered with” to make turnout appear greater than it was. AFP