Maduro claims landslide win in Venezuela elections

CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro claimed a landslide victory Sun watched regional elections in Venezuela on Sunday, based on

Maduro’s socialist party won states with the opposition Demo one state still undecided, according to the results announced by the National Elections Council.

“We do not recognize any of the results at this time. We are facing a very serious moment for the country,” warned the MUD’s campaign director Gerardo Blyde, who demanded a full audit of the vote.

Maduro said his government had scored an “emphatic victory” over its rivals by leaving the opposition with only five states, with his socialists still in line to take one further state where the results were still in dispute early Monday. Maduro and his allies

crushing blow to the opposition which had characterized the elec- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (right speaks beside Diosdado Cabello (left), a member of the Constituent Assembly, in Caracas on Sunday (Monday in Manila), after Madur’s socialist government won a landslide 17 out of 23 states in Venezuela’s regional elections, according to official results announced by the National Elections Council. tions as a referendum on Maduro, after months of deadly street protests earlier this year had failed to unseat him.

“We have serious suspicions, doubts, about the results that are going to be announced in a few minutes,” Blyde told reporters at a hastily-arranged press con results were announced.

International powers accuse Maduro of dismantling democracy by taking over state institutions in the wake of an economic collapse caused by a fall in the price of oil, its main source of revenue.

Last week, an International Monetary Fund report said there was no end in sight to the suffering of the Venezuelan people with food and medicine shortages intensifying a “humanitarian crisis.”

An ebullient Maduro told sup- brand of socialism he inherited from late president Hugo Chavez across the country.

“We have 17 governorships, 54 percent of the votes, 61 percent participation, 75 percent of the governorates, and the country has strengthened,” he said.

music, dance, but in peace, with respect to the adversary.”

Public opinion surveys had predicted that the opposition would win between 11 and 18 state governorships despite alleged government dirty tricks, which included relocating hundreds of polling stations away from areas where it had high support.

“All the pre-trial opinion studies, all our counts, are very different from the results that are going to be announced. We have already alerted the international community and we are alerting the country,” Blyde had warned earlier.

Sunday’s polls were the first contested by the opposition since - tional Assembly.