Venezuelan electoral authority declares Nicolás Maduro the winner despite accusations

Venezuela’s electoral authority declared the winner Nicolas Maduro despite allegations of irregularities from the opposition.

According to the president of the electoral authority, Elvis Amoroso, with 80% of the votes counted, Maduro obtained 51.2% of the votes, while the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained 44.2%.

Amoroso explained that Maduro obtained 5.15 million votes, while Edmundo González Urrutia obtained 4.45 million votes.

The official said that “in the next few hours” the CNE will publish on its website the details of the results, table by table, and will provide the 38 political parties that competed with a digital report on the outcome of the contest.

Before announcing the results, the president of the CNE assured that the data transmission system suffered an attack, which will be investigated, which is why – he explained – the announcement of the winner took longer than expected, although he did not give further details on the matter.

Shortly before, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the main opposition alliance in Venezuela, denounced today that the National Electoral Council (CNE) “has paralyzed” the transmission of results of the presidential elections in a “significant number” of the 15,767 voting centers, although it did not specify the data.

The CNE “has paralyzed the transmission in many centers and is preventing our witnesses from obtaining the record by removing them from their voting centers,” declared former deputy Delsa Solórzano on behalf of the coalition, which ran in these elections with Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as its standard-bearer.

According to the leader, “they are preventing the transmission” of a result that is expected to be favorable to the anti-Chavez movement based on the minutes previously sent through the system, before the process was halted, she said.

Candidate González Urrutia urged citizens, through the social network X, to remain in the polling stations “validating and defending” each vote.

“We have the right to remain in the voting centers until the records are delivered that will validate the information we have. Let us defend and celebrate democracy in peace,” said the former ambassador.

In addition to the opposition candidate, there are nine other candidates competing in these elections, including the current president, Nicolás Maduro, who is seeking a third consecutive six-year term in power.

Prepared by: with information from Agencies.