Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been elected for a third term with 51% of the vote, the country’s electoral authority announced just after midnight on Monday, despite multiple exit polls pointing to an opposition victory.
Authorities said opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had won 44 percent of the vote, but the opposition had earlier said there was “reason to celebrate” and urged supporters to continue monitoring the vote count.
“The results cannot be hidden. The country peacefully chose change,” Gonzalez said in a post on X at around 11 p.m. local time before the results were announced.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado renewed her call for the country’s military to uphold the results of the vote.
“This is a message to the military: The Venezuelan people are speaking out. They don’t want Maduro,” she previously told X. “It’s time to be on the right side of history. You have your chance. Your chance is now.”
Venezuela’s military has always supported President Maduro, a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister, and there have been no public signs that military leaders would defect from the government.
An exit poll by Edison Research, a renowned US election pollster, predicted Gonzalez would win 65% of the vote to Maduro’s 31%.
Local firm Meganalysis projected Gonzalez would get 65% of the vote, with Maduro getting just under 14%.
Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Commission (CNE), said in a televised statement that about 80 percent of ballot boxes had been counted, adding that the results had been delayed due to an “attack” on an election data transmission system.
