By Kejal Vyas and Juan Forero
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Nicolás Maduro won re-election to a
six-year term in a Venezuelan presidential election deemed
illegitimate by the opposition and foreign governments, paving the
way for heavier international sanctions amid widespread discontent
over his management of an economy in free fall.
Even before the ballots were counted, opposition candidate Henri
Falcón cried foul, saying the election was a sham and calling for a
new vote this year.
"We do not recognize this electoral process as valid," he said.
"For us, there were no elections."
The state electoral board, which is allied with the government,
said Mr. Maduro had won 5.8 million votes, or 67% of the total,
with nearly 93% of the vote counted, compared to 1.8 million, or
21%, for his main challenger, Mr. Falcón, a leftist former governor
and ex-soldier. Mr. Falcón had broken with other opposition leaders
who called for a boycott.
Those figures were a far cry from what pollsters had forecast.
Most polls before the race gave the edge to Mr. Falcon.
Despite near empty polling stations for much of the day in parts
of the country, the election board said turnout was 46% -- a number
that marked the weakest turnout in a presidential vote in nearly
two decades.
"They underestimated me, but here I am," Mr. Maduro told a crowd
of supporters in Caracas. He called his victory "a knockout."
Surrounded by supporters on a stage, Mr. Maduro celebrated what
he called the biggest margin of victory a president had recorded
here.
"You have confided in me and I'm going to responds to that
infinite confidence, that loving confidence," he said. "All
Venezuela has triumphed. Legitimate elections, accompanied by the
only one who can decide the future, the people."
The victory means Chavismo -- the radical leftist movement named
for the president's predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez -- will begin
a third decade of uninterrupted rule when Mr. Maduro is sworn in
for a second term early next year. But it is a government
struggling to survive: The economy will have contracted by 50% by
the end of the year, hyperinflation is expected to top 13,000% and
the U.S. has imposed sanctions on much of the top leadership of the
government for alleged crimes, including drug trafficking.
Millions of Venezuelans don't have enough to eat, polls
show.
"What we're living is so hard," said Yelitza Hernandez, a nurse
with two young sons she has trouble feeding. Ms. Hernandez said she
would vote, but didn't want to say for whom.
Mr. Maduro's victory will likely plunge Venezuela into deeper
crisis. It will likely spur more Venezuelans to leave, deepening
the cost of looking after refugees for neighbors like Colombia and
Brazil. It also means Venezuela's oil industry will continue to
collapse, keeping vital oil off global markets at a time of rising
international oil prices.
Phil Gunson, who tracks Venezuela for the International Crisis
Group policy analysis organization, said Mr. Maduro faces
anarchy.
"What he hasn't done is anything to fix hyperinflation, food
scarcity, the collapse of basic services, how to pay the foreign
debt, what to do about all the creditors lining up," Mr. Gunson
said. "He has no plan to fix it and no credible team in place
either that could, for example, renegotiate that debt."
Mr. Falcón had hoped widespread gloom and the appeal of his
far-reaching proposals, like adopting the dollar as a way to stop
hyperinflation, would swamp voting booths with supporters and force
the government to concede. Judging by the empty polling booths all
day, that didn't happen.
In a speech late Sunday, ahead of the election results, he
railed against the abstention movement as a lost opportunity. But
he also said there were myriad violations, including some 90,000
complaints by his team of electoral monitors who denounced
so-called assisted votes, where Socialist Party workers accompanied
voters and actually cast ballots for them.
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a tweet
calling the elections a "sham." U.S. leaders had said in recent
weeks that more sanctions against Venezuela's leaders -- about 60
of whom have been targeted -- could be coming.
State Department spokswoman Heather Nauert said the elections
weren't legitimate, echoing what the European Union and the biggest
countries in Latin America have said.
"The United States stands with democratic nations around the
world in support of the Venezuelan people and their sovereign right
to elect their representatives through free and fair elections,"
she said in a Twitter message.
In recent weeks, polls had shown that Mr. Falcón would beat an
unpopular president whose five years in office have been marked by
the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people to other
countries.
But Mr. Falcón's campaign not only faced the electoral machinery
of Venezuela's Socialist government but also the boycott, which
pollsters predicted would hurt him. In addition to facing Mr.
Maduro, he had to contend with a second challenger, Javier
Bertucci, a televangelist and businessman who siphoned votes from
Mr. Falcón. In the end, Mr. Bertucci collected 925,000 votes, or
10.7%, the National Electoral Council said.
Opposition leaders, though, said Mr. Falcón never stood a chance
against a government whose leaders have said publicly in speeches
that they would never give up power.
Venezuela's electoral council, stacked with government
supporters, in 2016 blocked a recall referendum on Mr. Maduro,
though the vote was permitted in the constitution, and two
elections last year were marked by widespread fraud. Mr. Maduro's
allies also barred the most popular opposition leaders from running
for president.
On Sunday, Mr. Falcón denounced the government for pressuring
ordinary people by keeping track of who voted by scanning IDs
called Fatherland Cards that are also used to track the state
benefits voters receive.
It was one of seven violations of an 11-point agreement that Mr.
Falcón had signed with Mr. Maduro in March to ensure as fair a vote
as possible. His campaign said the government also failed to allow
equal access to state media outlets, technical auditing of the
voting machine, include independent international observers and
keep pro-government campaigners away from voting centers.
"Today in Venezuela, this has become a virus," Mr. Falcón said
from the central city of Barquisimeto, where he voted and used to
be mayor. He criticized the government for "political and social
blackmail of a sector of the population whose dignity they're
trying to purchase."
A former bus driver who received his formative political
training in Communist Cuba, Mr. Maduro told voters that he wanted
another chance to guide his country. "I will carry out an economic
revolution that will shake the entire world," Mr. Maduro had said
at a Thursday rally.
He and his allies have contended the shortages and economic
chaos have been the result of U.S. sanctions and local businesses
that hoard, explanations rejected by independent economists who
blame government policies.
Voting was more robust in the districts where the government has
traditionally drawn support. Buses were used to move people to the
polls, and teams of pro-government supporters went door-to-door
herding residents to the ballot box and reminding them of the
monthly food boxes they receive.
"Thanks to Maduro that we get our benefits; before we used to
get nothing," said Victor Vasquez, a 54-year-old truck driver in an
east Caracas slum. He feared losing the food and frequent bonuses
in the near-worthless bolivar currency if the Socialist leader were
to be replaced.
Another government supporter, Humberto Vargas, 72, said Mr.
Maduro was "guaranteeing peace" in the face of hostility by the
opposition and governments that have opposed the president, such as
the U.S. "The United States and the opposition have caused the
hunger that many people are suffering," he said.
Polls, though, show that Mr. Maduro is deeply unpopular and that
most Venezuelans blame him and his policies, including price
controls, a highly stringent currency exchange and expropriations,
for having gutted the economy and decimated a once vigorous middle
class.
Anger over what had happened to her country led Carmen
Arrechedera, 56, a homemaker, to remain home like so many
others.
"No one should have tried to legitimize Maduro but rather leave
him alone" in the race, she said. "I don't believe in the electoral
system. It's fraudulent, and there aren't even international
observers you can confide in. There's an authoritarian regime in
Venezuela that won't permit itself to be removed from power."
--Mayela Armas, Maolis Castro and Ryan Dube contributed to this
article.
Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com and Juan Forero at
Juan.Forero@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 20, 2018 23:20 ET (03:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.