Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, has been reelected as president, the country\u2019s election authority has announced, amid allegations of electoral irregularities by the opposition. <\/p>\n
With 80% of votes counted, the longtime strongman won more than 51% of the vote, besting the <\/strong>Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) candidate Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia, who gained more than 44%, <\/strong>according to a statement by the National Electoral Council (CNE). <\/p>\n Maduro will hold office for a third consecutive six-year term \u2013 representing the continuity of \u201cChavismo\u201d in power, which started in 1999 at the hands of former president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. Maduro has been in power since Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s death in 2013. <\/p>\n The vote has come at a crucial moment for Venezuela, an oil-rich nation that experienced the worst economic crash of a peacetime country in recent history. Maduro has blamed foreign sanctions against his regime, saying Venezuela is victim of an \u201ceconomic war.\u201d <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the opposition \u2014 which has been galvanized this election cycle, posing the most significant threat to Maduro\u2019s grip on power in years \u2014 had promised to restore Venezuela\u2019s democracy and rebuild the economy if they won. <\/p>\n In the capital Caracas, opposition supporters were seen crying and hugging after the results were announced. Voters had turned out in droves, with many saying they would leave the country if Maduro won \u2014 pointing to violent repression and economic collapse under his rule. <\/p>\n Earlier Sunday evening, opposition leaders claimed there were election irregularities \u2014 including opposition witnesses being denied access to the CNE headquarters as the authority counted votes, and the CNE allegedly halting data being sent from local polling stations to their central location to prevent more votes from being processed. <\/p>\n Throughout the election process, there have been mounting concerns that the opposition will not see a fair contest, as Maduro\u2019s government controls all public institutions in Venezuela and has been accused of rigging previous votes, which it denied. <\/p>\n After the CNE announced Maduro\u2019s win, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the authority to publish its vote tabulations, saying it was \u201cvitally important\u201d that every vote is counted \u201cfairly and transparently.\u201d <\/p>\n This is a breaking news story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, has been reelected as president, the country\u2019s election authority has announced, amid allegations of electoral irregularities by the opposition. With 80% of votes counted, the longtime strongman won more than 51% of the vote, besting the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) candidate Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia, who gained more than 44%, according to a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}