Maduro claims landslide win in regional elections

President Nicolas Maduro has claimed a landslide victory in closely watched regional elections in Venezuela, based on official results that the opposition immediately rejected.
Maduro’s Socialist Party won governorships in 17 of the 23 states, with the opposition Democratic Union Roundtable (MUD) coalition taking five and one state still undecided, the National Elections Council announced on Sunday.
The Socialist Party’s strong showing comes amid devastating food shortages, triple-digit inflation, and a collapsing currency in the South American Opec (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) nation.
Polls suggested the opposition would easily win a majority.
Dismayed MUD leaders decried irregularities, called for street action this week, and demanded an audit, but they did not offer any evidence of fraud.
“Neither Venezuelans nor the world will swallow this fiction,” said grave-faced opposition campaign chief Gerardo Blyde at a midnight news conference. “We played by the rules with a democratic conscience ... but this electoral system is not trustworthy.”
“We do not recognise any of the results at this time. We are facing a very serious moment for the country,” he said, demanding a full audit of the vote. “We invite the Venezuelan people to fight to change this untrustworthy electoral system.”
Maduro said his government had scored an “emphatic victory” over its rivals, with his socialists still in line to take one further state where the results were still in dispute early yesterday.
Maduro and his allies held 20 outgoing governorships.
The results amounted to a crushing blow to the opposition which had characterised the elections as a referendum on Maduro, after months of deadly street protests earlier this year failed to unseat him.
Blyde accused the government of violating the law and imposing “abusive conditions in an unequal, unbalanced electoral process whose results do not reflect reality”.
“Neither the Venezuelan people nor the world will swallow the story that they beat us,” he said.
International powers accuse Maduro of dismantling democracy by taking over state institutions in the wake of an economic collapse caused by a fall in the price of oil, its main source of revenue.
Last week, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report said that there was no end in sight to the suffering of the Venezuelan people, with food and medicine shortages intensifying a “humanitarian crisis”.
Analysts said the outcome of Sunday’s elections diminished the chances of finding a political solution to the crisis and increased the likelihood of greater conflict.
“The path of political negotiations between the government and the opposition to restore balance collapses spectacularly,” said pollster and political analyst Luis Vicente Leon.
“We are entering a very delicate situation, one that presages more confrontation,” another analyst, Luis Salamanca, told AFP.
An ebullient Maduro told supporters that “Chavismo” – the brand of socialism he inherited from late president Hugo Chavez in 2013 – had won the popular vote across the country.
“We have 17 governorships, 54% of the votes, 61% participation, 75% of the governorates, and the country has strengthened,” he said. “I ask that we celebrate with joy, music, dance, but in peace, with respect to the adversary.”
Opinion surveys had predicted that the opposition would win 11 to 18 state governorships despite alleged government dirty tricks, which included relocating hundreds of polling stations away from areas where it had high support.
“The results are absolutely inconsistent with all the surveys that showed Chavismo in a clear minority,” said Edgard Gutierrez, head of the Venebarometro polling firm.
Sunday’s elections were the first contested by the opposition since the legislative vote in 2015 that gave it a majority in the National Assembly.
Turnout was over 61%, with many polling stations remaining open past the official 6pm (2200 GMT) closing time to cope with lines of voters.
The MUD has denounced Maduro’s moves to tighten his grip on power after facing down four months of protests in April to July in which 125 people were killed.
He has formed a Constituent Assembly packed with his own allies and wrested legislative power away from the opposition-dominated National Assembly.
Maduro said he had sent a message to opposition leader Julio Borges: “For the love of God, abide by the transparent results.”
Maduro said that it is up to the all-powerful Constituent Assembly to swear in the incoming governors.
The opposition has insisted that its governors will not be sworn in before the assembly, which it considers illegitimate.
For Maduro, the vote was an opportunity to counter allegations of dictatorship levelled at him at home and abroad after forming the Constituent Assembly.
It seems unlikely that opposition supporters are willing to return to the streets after four months of gruelling protests this year failed to pressure the government into holding an early presidential election, freeing jailed activists or accepting humanitarian aid.
At least 125 people died, while thousands were injured and arrested in violence that brought parts of Venezuela to a standstill as hooded youths battled security forces.
“Obviously, this was a brutal fraud,” said David Osorio, 21, who lost an eye when hit by a gas canister during the clashes. “But I don’t know if going back to the streets is best ... because the same will happen and many are simply not willing.”
One prominent opposition figure, legislator Jose Guerra, said the coalition should be careful about calling the results fraud, saying that disillusioned supporters who stayed away from the polls played a big role.
“We shot ourselves in the foot,” he said, noting record turnout of 74% in 2015 legislative elections, which the opposition won, versus 61% on Sunday.
Venezuelan bond prices were mostly down yesterday morning in a sign of investor pessimism.
The opposition’s electoral setback could further speed a flow of emigrants to other Latin American countries, Spain, and the United States, as many Venezuelans now fear the long-running political crisis will drag on for years.
“There’s no money, no food, no medicine, no security. Yet according to the government, everyone voted for them?” said a sceptical Gloria Torres, 56, once a staunch supporter of former president Chavez.
Of her two children, one has gone to Canada and the other is looking to leave.
“I want peace, not terrorism,” said customs official Franquelsi Anciana, who cast a vote for the government candidate in the western city of Maracaibo.