CARACAS - The electoral authority in Venezuela has announced that incumbent President Nicolas Maduro has won the election in the South American country with 51 percent of the votes. This victory sets the president up for his third term. Prior to the election, there was significant fear of vote-counting fraud. Various exit polls had indicated that the opposition was poised to win.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado had called on voters in Venezuela to stay at the polling stations after casting their votes on Sunday. She urged voters to do this to personally monitor the vote-counting during the "decisive hours" after the polls closed.
Curaçao
In Curaçao, hundreds of Venezuelans gathered at Brionplein initially to celebrate the opposition's anticipated victory. However, when the results were announced, the mood drastically changed.
Tearful people embraced and sought comfort from each other. No one believed that the result was achieved fairly.
On the island, located sixty kilometers off the coast of Venezuela, an estimated fifteen thousand Venezuelans reside. Many have fled Maduro's economic policies and are living without proper documentation.
Unconsolable on Brionplein
The pressure on Maduro to leave office had never been greater than during this election period. The opposition was significantly ahead in the polls. In oil-rich and once relatively prosperous Venezuela, the Gross Domestic Product has shrunk by eighty percent in the eleven years Maduro has been in power. Over seven million out of thirty million Venezuelans have emigrated due to increasing poverty.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the Venezuelan government, just before the polls closed, that the entire world was closely watching the elections. “Despite severe repression, there is enormous enthusiasm across the country about these elections,” he said.
There were few credible international observers in Venezuela to ensure the fairness of the elections. Venezuela had withdrawn an invitation for the European Union to act as observers before the polls opened. The Carter Center and the United Nations had sent a few election experts. However, they were not observers and had only limited responsibilities.