President Maduro wins Venezuelan election
Regime likely to face harsh oil sanctions
CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro won another six-year term as millions of Venezuelans boycotted the widely derided election, a victory that hands him sole ownership of the nation’s crushing economic crisis.
Ignoring calls from the US and regional leaders to suspend the elections, the socialist regime proceeded with the presidential contest despite the threat of further isolation and sanctions on the crisis-stricken nation’s all-important oil industry.
“How many times have they underestimated me?,” Mr Maduro, 55, called out to crowd of supporters outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. “You have believed in me, and I’m going to respond to this infinite confidence, this lovely confidence”.
“They say you were forced to vote, that you were coerced into voting — it’s an insult to the people!”
The result continues two decades of rule by the late socialist president Hugo Chavez and Mr Maduro, his hand-picked successor. Over that time, what had been one of Latin America’s wealthiest democracies has fallen into strongman rule.
The economy has deteriorated to the point that electricity and running water are luxuries and malnutrition is rampant. Neighbouring countries and international aid agencies are struggling to care for thousands of Venezuelans who have fled the nation.
Venezuela’s electoral authority said that Mr Maduro won almost 68% of the 8.6 million votes cast, while his main challenger, former governor Henri Falcon, took about 21%.
The most important figure, however, was turnout.
Voter participation was about 48%, according to the head of the electoral authority. That would be the lowest for a presidential election since Mr Chavez upended Venezuelan politics in 1998.
Three hours after the expected 6pm close of voting centres, many remained open and smiling officials of Mr Maduro’s regime went on state television to encourage people to cast ballots. Critics said the government was promising economic benefits to push listless voters to increase the participation rate.
Just before 10pm, Mr Falcon said the results of the election were suspect and illegitimate. In a late-night press conference, Mr Falcon told reporters the vote was “neither transparent or clean”.
“For us, there were no elections,” he said. “There need to be new elections”.
Desidelio Hildago, a 65-year-old retired clothing salesman, said he had planned to vote, but when he saw sparse crowds at his polling station in the El Paraiso neighbourhood of Caracas he abruptly decided against it and spent the afternoon playing dominoes with neighbours.
“A Maduro victory was decided months ago,” he said, sipping a beer. Asked whether he thought Mr Maduro would remedy the country’s crisis, Mr Hidalgo laughed.
Mr Maduro, a former bus driver and foreign minister, has given little indication of his plans to remedy inflation that may hit 13,000% this year and an economic contraction that could hit 9.2%.
Mr Maduro’s promise of an “economic revolution” is complicated by threats from the US to punish Venezuela’s oil industry. Four years ago, oil was trading at over $100 a barrel, which gave the ruling socialists leeway. Now, oil is about $70 a barrel and the state producer’s creditors are already seizing its assets.
The country’s main opposition alliance shunned the elections after the government refused to satisfy demands including restaffing a compliant electoral authority and providing additional time for primaries.
While many polls had given a commanding lead to Mr Falcon, a former soldier and governor, he struggled to gain widespread support as many Maduro opponents accused him of legitimising a sham vote.
The US has no plans to recognise Sunday’s election in Venezuela, and sanctions against the nation’s oil industry are under “active review”, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told reporters in Buenos Aires on Sunday.
Previous sanctions have been levelled against individuals, but punishing the nation’s lifeline industry could have devastating effects on a population already suffering.
US Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter that the regime is a dictatorship.
Mr Maduro has effectively disassembled the organs of democracy in a nation that emerged from military leadership in 1958 — among the first in the region to do.
After the opposition took control of the national assembly, Mr Maduro bypassed it by creating an all-powerful body filled with his loyalists. When the assembly named supreme court justices, he threatened to prosecute them and they fled into exile.
His most potent opponents are imprisoned or banned from civic life. Mr Maduro dealt out large and profitable sectors of the economy to the military.
On Sunday, the government seemed most concerned with inflating participation to prove its legitimacy to its own followers. There was little question about who would actually be declared the winner. And the police continue to hold scores of prisoners who opposed him.
“Who was the big loser today? Abstention,” said Delcy Rodriguez, head of the Maduro-created constituent assembly.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has previously claimed he would not rule out military action.