Thousands of people have protested across Venezuela as opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez announced his campaign had proof that he won the country's disputed election whose victory was handed to President Nicolas Maduro.
Gonzalez and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters they had obtained more than 70 per cent of tally sheets from Sunday's election, and they show Gonzalez with more than double Maduro’s votes.
Both called on people, some of whom protested in the hours after Maduro was declared winner, to remain calm and invited them to gather peacefully on Tuesday morning to celebrate the results.
“I speak to you with the calmness of the truth,” Gonzalez told supporters in the capital, Caracas, on Monday.
“We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.”
Their announcement came after the National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro’s ruling Unites Socialist Party of Venezuela, declared him the winner, handing him his third six-year term.
In the capital, the protests were mostly peaceful but a brawl broke out when dozens of riot gear-clad police blocked the caravan in an upper-class district.
Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, some of whom threw stones and other objects at officers.
The demonstrations followed a peaceful election that reflected hopes that Venezuela could avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of single-party rule.
The winner was to take control of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change.
“We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro said in a televised ceremony.
“An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’etat in Venezuela again of a fascist and counter-revolutionary nature,” he said, adding Venezuela’s “law will be respected”.
Machado told reporters tally sheets showed Maduro and Gonzalez received more than 2.7 million and roughly 6.2 million votes, respectively.
“A free people is one that is respected and we are going to fight for our freedom,” Gonzalez said.
“Dear friends, I understand your indignation but our response from the democratic sectors is of calmness and firmness.”
Electoral authorities had not released the tally sheets for each of the 30,000 voting machines as of Monday evening.
The lack of tallies prompted independent electoral observers and the European Union to publicly urge the entity to release them.
Several foreign governments, including the United States and the EU, held off recognising the election results.
After failing to oust Maduro during three rounds of demonstrations since 2014, the opposition put its faith in the ballot box.
The country sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy.
But after Maduro took the helm, it tumbled into a free fall marked by plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages of basic goods and hyperinflation.
US oil sanctions sought to force Maduro from power after his 2018 re-election, which dozens of countries condemned as illegitimate.
But the sanctions only accelerated the exodus of some 7.7 million Venezuelans from their crisis-stricken nation.
Gabriel Boric, the leftist leader of Chile, called the results “difficult to believe”, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had “serious concerns” the announced tally did not reflect the actual votes or the will of the people.
In response to criticism from other governments, Maduro’s foreign affairs ministry announced it would recall its diplomatic personnel from seven countries in the Americas, including Panama and Chile.
Gonzalez, 74, was unknown until he was tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled supreme court from running for any office for 15 years.
Authorities set the election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former president Hugo Chavez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro.
But Maduro and his party are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for spurring hunger, crippling the oil industry and separating families due to migration.
