By REGINA GARCIA CANO
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela faced a political standstill Monday after both incumbent President Nicolás Maduro and the country’s main opposition coalition claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential election.
Maduro considers the results of the election a settled matter. But the campaign of opposition candidate Edmundo González has disputed the results released by the ruling party-loyal National Electoral Council, and it is setting up a fight over the vote tallies of each of the 30,000 voting machines the electoral body was meant to release after polls closed Sunday.
The National Electoral Council said Maduro secured 51% of the vote while González garnered 44%. The electoral body, however, did not release the tallies from any machine, promising early Monday only to do so in the “coming hours,” hampering the ability to verify the results.
In December, the last time Venezuelans were summoned to the polls, electoral authorities never released the tallies after claiming that more than 10 million voters cast ballots in a referendum over a territorial dispute with Guyana.
Here’s what to know about Venezuela’s presidential election and what’s next:
HOW DOES VOTING WORK?
Venezuelans vote using electronic machines, which record votes and provide every voter a paper receipt that shows the candidate of their choice. Voters are supposed to deposit their receipt at ballot boxes before exiting the polls.
After polls close, each machine prints a tally sheet showing the candidates’ names and the votes they received.
But the ruling party wields tight control over the voting system, both through a loyal five-member electoral council and a network of longtime local party coordinators who get near unrestricted access to voting centers. Those coordinators, some of whom are responsible for handing out government benefits including subsidized food, have blocked representatives of opposition parties from entering voting centers as allowed by law to witness the voting process, vote counting and, crucially, to obtain a copy of the machines’ final tally sheet.
After Sunday’s results were announced, opposition leader María Corina Machado said the margin of González’s victory was “overwhelming” based on voting tallies it had received from campaign representatives from about 40% of ballot boxes nationwide.
Hours later, National Electoral Council President Elvis Amoroso formally declared Maduro as the winner, but the electoral body’s website was down, and it remained unclear when the tallies would be available. The lack of tallies prompted an independent group of electoral observers to publicly urge the entity to release them.
HOW MANY PEOPLE VOTED?
More than 9 million people cast ballots Sunday, according to figures released by Amoroso.
The number of eligible voters for this election was estimated to be around 17 million. Another 4 million Venezuelans are registered to vote, but they live abroad and many did not meet the requirements to register to cast ballots overseas.
Voters started lining up at some voting centers as early as Saturday evening across the country, sharing water, coffee and snacks for several hours.
In the months leading up to the highly anticipated election, government supporters and opponents alike expressed a desire for government changes, often citing their deep discontent with a crisis-wrecked economy that does not allow them to afford food and other basic needs, pushing millions to emigrate.
WAS THE ELECTION FAIR?
A fair presidential election seemed like a possibility last year, when Maduro’s government agreed to work with the U.S.-backed Unitary Platform coalition to improve electoral conditions. But hopes for a level playing field began fading days later, when authorities said the opposition’s October primary was against the law and later began issuing warrants and arresting human rights defenders, journalists and opposition members.
González, a former diplomat, appeared on the ballot because Venezuela’s top court blocked the presidential candidacy of Machado, who swept the coalition’s primary with more than 90% of support.
Thousands of opposition supporters had agreed to mobilize and assist voters throughout Election Day, and the González-Machado campaign was banking on their efforts to get people to the polls to vote as well as to deter government actors from intimidating or coercing voters.
Across the country, many of those supporters followed the campaign’s instructions to remain at the polls long after they closed in hopes that their sheer presence could help minimize any ruling party efforts to deny opposition representatives access to the tally sheets.
A U.N.-backed panel investigating human rights violations in Venezuela earlier this year reported that the government had increased repression of critics and opponents ahead of the election, subjecting targets to detention, surveillance, threats, defamatory campaigns and arbitrary criminal proceedings.
WHAT CAN THE OPPOSITION DO?
The opposition’s campaign early Monday asked voters to remain calm and avoid any violent demonstrations, but it did not offer any specific steps it will follow to demonstrate its claim to victory.
“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said in his first remarks.
González and Machado planned to update supporters Monday evening. But people began protesting Maduro’s claim despite a downpour.
A few thousand took to the streets near Caracas’ largest low-income neighborhood, Petare. They shouted against the government, and some, wearing masks, tore down campaign posters of Maduro hung on lampposts. Heavily armed security forces stood just a few blocks away from the protest.
“It’s going to fall. It’s going to fall. This government is going to fall!” shouted some of the protesters. Before Amoroso had announced results, some opposition supporters who believed González would be declared winner had begun shouting the well-known chat but in past tense.
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