Maduro slams protesters against election results as ‘fascist, counter-revolutionary’
President Nicolas Maduro slammed violent protests that flooded the streets of Venezuela’s capital and other cities after he had secured a third term in the election.
Maduro said in a nationally televised ceremony that “an attempt is being made to impose a coup d’etat in Venezuela again of a fascist and counterrevolutionary nature.”
“We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro said.
“We already know this movie, and this time, there will be no kind of weakness,” he added, saying that Venezuela’s “law will be respected.”
Public anger swelled after the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday formally confirmed that Maduro had been re-elected by a majority of Venezuelans to another six-year term as president “for the period 2025-2031.”
It maintained Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia had failed to defeat the president, earning 44 percent of the votes compared with Maduro’s 51 percent.
Thousands of people across Venezuela protested in the hours after Maduro was declared winner.
In the state of Falcon, demonstrators toppled a statue of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
In the Petare area in Caracas, demonstrators chanted against the president, and some masked young people tore down his campaign posters from lampposts.
“It’s going to fall. It’s going to fall. This government is going fall!” some of the protesters shouted.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed on Monday that a review of voting records available so far clearly showed that the next president will be Gonzalez.
Speaking to supporters outside campaign headquarters in Caracas on the same day, Gonzalez appealed for Venezuelans to protest as he claimed the ballot showed he had won the presidency.
“I speak to you at peace, knowing the truth. And I want to tell all the Venezuelan people that their will expressed yesterday through their vote will be respected. We will make sure that happens,” Gonzalez said.
Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek Saab said on Monday that his office had launched an investigation into an alleged cyber attack on the electoral system that slowed the vote count.
Saab said opposition leaders – including Machado – have been involved in the cyber attack.
Maduro first came to power in 2013 after the death of his predecessor Chavez.
Venezuela is facing an economic crisis that has pushed many people to leave the country amid sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and others, which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
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