Protests build in Venezuela on Maduro's claim: Update3

Adds details from protests.

Protests have grown steadily today after Venezuela's election authority declared that President Nicolas Maduro won a third six-year term in a vote questioned by allied countries as well as the opposition.

Protestors blocked traffic through the capital of Caracas late on Monday, with many approaching the presidential palace in Miraflores. Fiery barricades, groups of protestors on motorcycles seeking out Maduro supporters and the banging of pots in cacerolazo protests continued all day. Venezuela broke diplomatic ties with seven Latin American countries who had called for the government to respect the vote.

Maduro won with 51.2pc of the vote on Sunday which was tallied "after resolving an attack against the results transmission system," said CNE president Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela's administration-aligned national electoral council (CNE). CNE data indicated 44.2pc of the vote for his main rival Edmundo Gonzalez, who ran in the place of main opposition coalition leader Maria Corina Machado after Maduro's government blocked her from running.

The council said 80pc of the votes were counted, indicating an "irreversible" trend that would allow another six years in office for the party that has ruled the country since 1999. The first data shown by CNE on live television late Sunday indicated voting shares that totaled 132pc, with eight opposition candidates other than Gonzalez each getting an identical 4.6pc of the vote.

CNE's final results contrasts with independent opinion polls and data from opposition observers that forecast a victory for Gonzalez. Machado said her team's review of voting data indicated a win for Gonzalez with 70pc of the vote compared with 30pc for Maduro, in line with results from independent opinion polls.

The US, which already has an extensive set of sanctions against oil and mining industries in Venezuela, questioned the election result but indicated that no specific action by Washington was imminent.

The US is asking Caracas to make public the detailed, precinct-level election data to prove the Maduro victory claim, a senior US official said, who added that the US was working with regional allies and the EU to coordinate a response.

"We're going to reserve any judgment until we have a better sense of what happened on the ground," the White House said.

About the only remaining effective lever of US sanctions left to apply would involve taking away authorization to Chevron, granted in 2022, to import into the US oil produced in a joint venture with state-owned PdV.

But another US official said today that option is not under consideration.

Machado's team denounced that it was denied access to the council's center to scrutinise data. Opposition leader Delsa Solorzano also said that witnesses had been kicked out of polling stations and denied required copies of vote tallies. Violence hit polling stations and at least two people were killed overnight after a relatively calm election day.

"All the international community, all, even those who once were [government] allies, they know what happened in Venezuela and how the people voted for a change," Machado said.

Breaking ties

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his government would not recognise the outcome until the government investigates opposition claims. Leftist Chilean president Gabriel Boric said the CNE's results were "difficult to believe."

In a joint statement, the governments of Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay also called on Venezuela to respect its citizens' decision.

Venezuela's government accused these and other Latin American governments of "interfering" in the electoral process under direction from the US, and said it is withdrawing Venezuelan missions from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. It is also expelling these countries' diplomatic missions from Venezuela. Ties had already been severed during previous disputes with Ecuador and Guatemala and ties were only being recently reestablished with Paraguay.

Maduro would continue the legacy of late former president Hugo Chavez, who died in office in 2013 after ushering in massive changes that have contributed to reducing the country's oil output to about 900,000 b/d to more than 3mn b/d at its peak.

By Isabella Reimi, Carlos Camacho and Haik Gugarats