By Staff Reporter
CARACAS, July 30 (Reuters) – Protests by ruling party and opposition supporters are expected to take place in Venezuela on Tuesday in the wake of a disputed election victory by President Nicolas Maduro, with the opposition saying vote tallies show its candidate easily won.
Electoral authorities said on Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of the vote, extending a quarter-century of socialist rule.
But the opposition said the 73% of voting tallies to which it has access showed opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had won an unassailable victory, winning more than twice as many votes as Maduro.
“My dear Venezuelans, tomorrow we meet; as a family, organized, demonstrating the determination we have to make every vote count and defend the truth,” opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said in a post on X late on Monday, calling for supporters to march on Tuesday.
Jorge Rodriguez, a ruling party lawmaker and Maduro’s campaign manager, urged followers to take part in marches to the Miraflores presidential palace to support the government.
While Gonzalez has warned against violence, Rodriguez accused the opposition of stoking violence.
Speaking on Monday night, Maduro said that his government “knows how to confront this situation and defeat those who are violent,” though he also said he supported peace.
Maduro – a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister – took office on president Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013 and his 2018 reelection is considered fraudulent by the United States and others, who call him a dictator.
Many Venezuelan voters despaired at news of another six-year term for Maduro, who has presided over an economic collapse, the migration of about a third of the population, and a sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations, crowned by sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
Governments in Washington and around the world have called for a full tabulation of the votes, while 12 member nations of the Organization of American States are set to meet to discuss the election on Wednesday.
The tallies in possession of the opposition showed a total of 2.75 million votes for Maduro and 6.27 million for his rival, former diplomat Gonzalez, Machado said.
The numbers were sharply different to the 5.15 million votes the electoral authority said Maduro had won, compared to 4.45 million for Gonzalez.
Clashes between protesters and security forces were reported throughout the country on Monday, with tear gas fired to disperse crowds and at least two people killed.
In Coro, capital of Falcon state, protesters tore down a statue of Maduro’s late mentor Hugo Chavez.
The Venezuelan Conflict Observatory, an advocacy group, reported more than 180 protests in 20 of the country’s 23 states in a post on X.
“Numerous acts of repression and violence carried out by paramilitary collectives and security forces have been reported,” it said.
