Protests have spread across Venezuela and police fired tear gas in the capital Caracas after the opposition said it had evidence it had won a weekend election handed to socialist President Nicolás Maduro.
The demonstrations began after the electoral college, which critics say is under the influence of a dictatorial government, declared on Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51 percent of the vote, extending the 25-year mandate of his “Chavista” movement.
But the opposition said the 73% of votes it had access to showed its candidate Edmundo González had won a landslide victory, with more than double the votes of Maduro.
Many Venezuelans performed “panelaços.” Some blocked roads, lit fires and threw Molotov cocktails at police as protests spread across the country, including near the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.
“We are tired of this government, we want change. We want to be free in Venezuela. We want our families to return here,” said one masked protester, referring to the exodus of about a third of Venezuelans in recent years.
Police with shields and batons in Caracas and the city of Maracay fired tear gas to disperse some protests.
Many protesters rode motorcycles and blocked roads or covered themselves with the Venezuelan flag. Some covered their faces with scarves to protect themselves from tear gas.
The government calls them violent agitators.
“I will fight for democracy in my country. They stole our elections,” said another unidentified protester.
In Coro, the state capital of Falcón, protesters cheered and danced as they toppled a statue of the late President Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor who governed from 1999 to 2013.
A local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Conflict Observatory, said it had recorded 187 protests in 20 states as of 6 p.m. Monday, with “several acts of repression and violence” carried out by paramilitary groups and security forces.
Maduro, in a live broadcast from the presidential palace, said his forces were maintaining the peace. The Armed Forces have long supported him and there are no signs that the generals are breaking with the government.
“We are following all the acts of violence promoted by the far right,” Maduro said. “We have already seen this film.”
DECEASED
At least two people were killed in connection with vote counting or protests, one in the border state of Táchira and another in Maracay.
Maduro, 61, a former union leader and former foreign minister, won elections after Chávez’s death in 2013 and was re-elected in 2018. The opposition has said both elections were rigged.
He has presided over economic collapse, mass migration and deteriorating relations with the West, including U.S. and European Union sanctions that have crippled an already struggling oil sector.
His defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, warned of a repeat of the “terrible situations of 2014, 2017 and 2019,” when waves of anti-government protests left hundreds dead and failed to oust Maduro.
Source: Terra
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