Maduro Wins Disputed Vote As Venezuela Mulls Bleak Future

Caracas, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st May, 2018 ) :Venezuela was facing the threat of fresh international sanctions and intensified domestic unrest Monday following President Nicolas Maduro's re-election in a vote rejected by the opposition as a farce.

Election officials said Maduro won 68 percent of the votes cast in Sunday's presidential poll, far ahead of the 21 percent won by his nearest rival, ex-army officer Henri Falcon. In an address to cheering supporters outside Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Maduro hailed his victory for another six-year term as a "historic record".

"We won again! We triumphed again! We are the force of history turned into a permanent popular victory!" Maduro told those gathered to celebrate his "knockout" victory. But the vote was marred by a 52 percent abstention rate -- a historic high -- following a boycott called by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) opposition coalition, which slammed the ballot as a "farce." And even before it took place, the United States, Canada, the European Union and a dozen Latin American countries said they would not recognize the results.