Venezuela electoral body says ruling party dominates vote

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s National Electoral Council said late Sunday that candidates for the ruling socialist party won a majority of the 23 governors’ offices up for grabs in Sunday’s regional elections. Opposition leaders are disputing the vote count.

Pro-government electoral council president Tibisay Lucena said opposition candidates won five of 22 races in which the results are considered irreversible.

Projections by independent pollsters had predicted the opposition would win a majority of the governorships for the first time in nearly 20 years of socialist rule.

The government had said the newly elected governors would be subordinate to a pro-government constitutional assembly.

The vote was regarded as a sign of how much support President Nicolas Maduro and the socialist movement founded by the late Hugo Chavez maintain amid soaring inflation and crippling food and medical shortages.

The election came during one of the most turbulent years in recent Venezuelan history. Four months of anti-government protests that began in April left at least 120 people dead. In August, the new progovernment constitutional assembly ruling with virtually unlimited powers was installed after a vote that opposition leaders refused to participate in and that the National Electoral Council was accused of manipulating.

With few checks and balances remaining, a rising number of foreign leaders are calling Venezuela a dictatorship.

Maduro has warned that new governors will have to take a loyalty oath submitting to the authority of the assembly that is rewriting the nation’s constitution. Opposition candidates have vowed not to submit to an assembly they consider illegal.