By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Frances Robles and Julie Turkewitz

CARACAS — Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was declared the winner of the country’s tumultuous presidential election early Monday (29), despite enormous momentum from an opposition movement that had been convinced this was the year it would oust Maduro’s socialist-inspired party.

The vote was riddled with irregularities, and citizens were angrily protesting the government’s actions at voting centres even as the results were announced.

With 80% of voting stations counted, the election authority claimed that Maduro had received 51.2% of the vote, while his closest competitor, Edmundo González, had received 44.2%.

The result is very likely to be disputed by the opposition. And frustration over the outcome could plunge the oil-rich, crisis-laden nation into a period of deep uncertainty, with concern that street demonstrations could follow.

In the past, security forces aligned with Maduro have crushed protests with violence. The election body that declared the victory is led by a long-time ally of the president.

During the 25 years, Maduro’s party has been in power, it has presided over an economic contraction unlike any seen outside war and has become the source of one of the largest migrant crises in the world.

Millions of Venezuelans had rallied behind the opposition candidate, González, a previously little-known former diplomat who had the backing of a popular leader, María Corina Machado.

Machado, a conservative former legislator, had electrified great swaths of the country with a promise to restore democracy and bring home millions of Venezuelans who had fled their country.

But in the end, Maduro’s time-tested tactics of voter coercion, suppression and confusion, combined with the opposition’s limited ability to monitor the vote, seem to have tipped the balance in his favour.

There are two vote counts in Venezuela, a digital tally received by the country’s election body — which is led by an ally of Maduro — and a paper count printed by each voting machine at polling places.

The paper counts are typically the way that everyday citizens can verify that the digital count is correct.

But this year, in some key stations, election officials refused to hand over the paper tallies to election monitors. This was the case at one of the largest voting stations in the capital, Caracas, the Rafael Napoleon Baute school in Petare, where about 15,000 people vote.

In Venezuela’s second-largest city, Maracaibo, local leaders said they had not been able to get the paper counts for all the voting centres in their region. At one school, Colegio Gonzaga, people protested outside, calling on the electoral body to turn over the voting receipts.

With limited paper counts, the country was left without a way to verify the result announced by the ruling party.

For months, Venezuelans have been preparing to vote, and a spirit of civic duty and a strong desire for change permeated the nation during the election Sunday (28). Many polls showed González with a significant advantage over Maduro.

In some places, voters began lining up as early as 10 p.m. Saturday (27), eight hours before voting places were scheduled to open and slept in the streets ahead of the vote. One photograph, taken in the western state of Tachira, showed citizens packed into a narrow alley before dawn, eager to cast a ballot, and quickly became emblematic of the moment.

Speaking at a polling place in Caracas just after dawn, Henry Mayora, 74, said he had arrived at 2:30 a.m. with his own chair, making him the first in line.

“There could be an earthquake, a landslide, rain,” said Mayora, who walks with a cane and was supporting the opposition. “And we are going to vote.”

The election is being watched closely in Washington, which has spent years trying to push Maduro from office, levying brutal sanctions in 2019 that have strangled the country’s already crippled economy.

A change of government has become even more important to the United States in recent years, as a vast number of Venezuelans have begun migrating north, and as the country’s oil becomes ever more valuable in a changing geopolitical landscape.

Maduro’s cozy relationship with US adversaries, including Russia, Iran and China, has only worried Washington more.

In the weeks before the election, Maduro’s government made enormous efforts to tilt the results in its favour, including arresting members of the Machado-González campaign and preventing most people living abroad from casting a vote.

And as the polls opened Sunday morning, there were signs of problems in various parts of the country.

At the Andrés Bello school, a voting station in Caracas, a journalist with The New York Times watched about 15 men in unmarked black jackets temporarily block access to the centre. In a scuffle, one woman was punched.

In the city of Maturin, in the east, a woman was hit by a bullet as men on motorcycles passed by a line of people waiting to vote, according to a former lawmaker, María Gabriela Hernández, who was at the scene.

Many polling places across the country opened late. At times, voting machines stopped functioning. Some official witnesses were barred from entering their polling stations. Other stations stayed open late as members of Maduro’s party rounded up voters who had yet to cast their ballots.

In one voting centre in the city of Carupano, in the northern department of Sucre, citizens and local journalists said that government security forces had tried to remove a vote monitor allied with the opposition and replace the person with a monitor lacking credentials from the country’s electoral body.

In the city of Cumana, in Sucre, five people said that a new, unofficial voting station had been installed in a community centre. Supporters of the government blocked a journalist working for the Times who tried to enter the site.

At another polling place in Cumana, about 50 armed police officers and national guardsmen had formed a long line outside by midmorning, wearing helmets and bullet-resistant vests, clearly projecting the state’s strength to anyone considering voting against those in power.

In Maracaibo, in the west, voters reported that their polling places had been moved without their knowledge. Sonia Gómez, 65, said she had checked the election council website Saturday to verify her polling station. But when she arrived Sunday, election workers told her she was registered somewhere else.

“They moved us older people because they know we don’t have that much energy,” she said, “but I’m going to look for someone to take me to vote.”

In other places, voting went more smoothly. At one of Caracas’ largest voting centres in the working-class Petare neighbourhood, Rony Velázquez, a personal trainer, said he had chosen to cast his vote for the government.

He said that he was sympathetic to the opposition but chose to seek improvements within the current political system. “It would take them years to change things,” he said of the opposition.

If the election decision holds and Maduro remains in power, he will carry Chavismo, the country’s socialist-inspired movement, into its third decade in Venezuela. Founded by former President Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor, the movement initially promised to lift millions out of poverty.

For a time it did. But in recent years, the socialist model has given way to brutal capitalism, economists say, with a small state-connected minority controlling much of the nation’s wealth.

Chávez swept to power in 1999 following a democratic election, vowing to remake a system led by a corrupt elite. Today, his movement runs a state widely viewed as corrupt, and his party’s leaders are the elite — and Machado and González had promised to oust them.

In recent interviews across the country, some supporters of the opposition vowed to take to the streets if Maduro declared victory.

Luis Bravo, a voter who was selling water at an opposition event recently, said that if Maduro declared a win and there were demonstrations, he would join.

“I am praying that it doesn’t come to that because, obviously, a lot of people are going to die,” he said. “But if I have to, I have to.”

-New York Times