Opinion polls taken before Venezuela's presidential election showed incumbent leader Nicolás Maduro trailing, and exit polls taken on the day show the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, running huge margins over Maduro. Maduro has, nonetheless, declared victory.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's electoral council declared the authoritarian socialist the winner of Venezuela's election Sunday despite partial resultsand independent exit polling that suggested opposition candidate Edmundo González had captured twice as many votes.
The Venezuelan opposition, which sent thousands of ordinary citizens to monitor voting centers across the country Sunday, swiftly rejected the results and said it had records showing a clear victory by González. The election outcome was immediately challenged by a host of foreign leaders, including U.S. officials.
Maduro clearly lost the election ("Nicolás Maduro narrowly wins re-election after 109pc of votes counted"), but now another contest begins. The odd thing is that he thought me might have a chance after a decade of crisis, economic collapse, and sanctions resulting from the rigged election that handed him his second term in office. Why did he even bother to have an election? Just days ago, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump made clear that getting voted in once is means you subsequently need not bother with that sort of thing.
