AP news reports that in Venezuela, opposition supporters have begun to organize rallies to protest against the declaration that Nicolás Maduro has been re-elected as the country’s president in a ballot that many see as being corrupt in favor of the current head of state.
The report said, “As thousands of people demonstrated across Venezuela, opposition candidate Edmundo González announced Monday that his campaign has the proof it needs to show he won the country’s disputed election in which electoral authorities named President Nicolás Maduro the victor.”
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At first, the protests were peaceful, but after attempts by law enforcement officers to disperse the crowds, violence erupted. The police then used tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowd, who responded by throwing stones and other objects at the security forces as well as demolishing the monument to Hugo Chavez.
The opposition says it has evidence of voter fraud, and its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won 70 percent of the vote - almost double the number of votes obtained by Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro said the opposition was trying to carry out a fascist and counter-revolutionary coup d'état in Venezuela and called his own re-election a triumph for peace and stability.
One of the first to congratulate Maduro was Russian President Vladimir Putin who was quoted on the Kremlin's Telegram channel as saying:
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“Russian-Venezuelan relations have the nature of a strategic partnership. I am confident that your activity as head of state will continue to contribute to their progressive development on all tracks… This fully meets the interests of our friendly peoples and goes in line with building a more fair and democratic world order.
“I would like to reaffirm my readiness to continue our constructive joint work on key issues on the bilateral and international agenda,” Putin added.
According to AP, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Washington was “gravely concerned” that the election results did not reflect the actual votes or will of the people.
The leaders of several countries questioned the result including Argentina’s President Javier Milei, Chile’s Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren and Peru’s Foreign Minister Javier Gonzalez-Olaechea who all cast doubt on the validity of the result.
The government of Venezuela, in turn, announced on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that it was recalling its diplomats from Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Chile and demanded the immediate withdrawal of representatives of these countries from its territory.
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