Venezuelans clash with police after disputed election result
Security forces in Venezuela have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters challenging the disputed election results from Sunday.
On Monday evening, thousands of people converged on central Caracas, some walking miles from slums in the surrounding mountains, heading towards the presidential palace.
Protests ignited in the Venezuelan capital after President Nicolás Maduro declared victory.
The opposition has rejected Mr. Maduro’s victory as fraudulent, asserting that their candidate, Edmundo González, won convincingly with 73.2% of the vote.
Pre-election opinion polls indicated a clear victory for the challenger.
Opposition parties had united behind Mr. González to oust President Maduro after 11 years in power, amid widespread dissatisfaction over the country’s economic crisis.
A heavy military and police presence was deployed in Caracas to disperse protesters and prevent them from reaching the presidential palace.
Crowds chanted “freedom, freedom!” and called for the government’s downfall.
Footage showed tires burning on highways and large crowds in the streets, with police on motorbikes firing tear gas.
In some areas, posters of President Maduro were torn down and burned, and tires, cars, and trash were set alight.
Armed police, military, and government-supporting left-wing paramilitaries clashed with protesters and blocked many roads around the city center.
The Venezuelan government also announced a temporary suspension of commercial flights to and from Venezuela with Panama and the Dominican Republic starting at 20:00 local time on Wednesday.
In a speech on Venezuelan state television, Mr. Maduro said it is his “obligation to tell you the truth.”
“We are all obliged to listen to the truth, to arm ourselves with patience, calmness, and strength because we are familiar with this situation and know how to face and defeat violence.”
The BBC interviewed several people who attended a protest in a densely populated area known as La Lucha, meaning “the fight”.
Paola Sarzalejo, 41, called the vote “terrible, fraud. We won with 70%, but they did the same thing to us again. They stole the elections from us again.”
“We want a better future for our youth, for our country,” she said.
Her father Miguel, 64, agreed: “He lost the elections, he has no right to be there right now.”
He added: “We want a better future for the youth because if not they will leave the country. One where they can work well and earn well. We have a rich country and he is destroying everything.”
“If the youth all leave, only old people will be left in Venezuela, only senior citizens.”
Cristobal Martinez, draped in a Venezuelan flag, said he believed the election was a “fraud.”
He said most young people in La Lucha and surrounding areas voted in an election that was particularly important for young people as “many of us are unemployed” and “the majority do not study.”
“It was the first time I had voted in my life. I was there from six in the morning until approximately nine in the morning and saw many people mobilizing in the street.
“There was a lot of discontent towards the government. The majority of people participated in change.”
He said while President Maduro had been in office for a long time, there had not been “any change” and it had been “worse since President Chavez died.”
He accused some older government sympathizers of living off bonuses or food handouts, whereas “we want change, decent jobs, and a good future for our country.”
Mr. Martinez expressed a desire for “people from other countries to help us… so that a disaster doesn’t happen like in previous times.”
“They are trying to impose in Venezuela a coup d’etat again of fascist and counter-revolutionary character.”
The Venezuelan attorney general warned that the blocking of roads or breaking any laws related to disturbances as part of protests would be met with the full force of the law.
He said 32 people had been detained on accusations ranging from destroying electoral materials to sparking acts of violence.
Several Western and Latin American countries, as well as international bodies including the UN, have called on the Venezuelan authorities to release voting records from individual polling stations.
Argentina is one country that has refused to recognize President Maduro’s election victory, and in response, Venezuela recalled diplomats from Buenos Aires.
Diplomats from six other Latin American countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay – have also been withdrawn for what Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil described on social media as “interventionist actions and statements”.
Meanwhile, US senior administration officials said that the announced result “does not track with data that we’ve received through quick count mechanisms and other sources, which suggests that the result that was announced may be at odds with how people voted”.
That was “the principal source of our concern”, they added.
“That is why we are asking the Venezuelan electoral authorities to release the underlying data that supports the numbers that they have publicly announced.”
However, the US has not yet been drawn on what the result means for their sanctions policy towards Venezuela. Officials have emphasized that while they have doubts about the result, President Maduro did call an election and allow an opposition candidate to be on the ballot paper – even if the opposition leader was banned from running.
The Organization of American States (OAS) announced late on Monday it will hold a meeting on Wednesday of its permanent council over the Venezuelan results.
