President Nicolás Maduro consolidated his power even more by sweeping the elections to elect the municipal councils before an opposition that mostly decided to boycott the process since they consider that there are no conditions to guarantee a transparent election.
Venezuela’s populist leader Nicolas Maduro won a new six-year term on Sunday, but his main rivals disavowed the election alleging massive irregularities in a process critics decried as a farce propping up a dictatorship. Victory for the 55-year-old former bus driver, who replaced Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer in 2013, may trigger a new round of western sanctions against the populist government as it grapples with a ruinous economic crisis.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro along with more than 50 Venezuelan nationals are considered high risk for laundering money and financing terrorism, according to an advisory issued by Panama's economy and finance ministry.
Venezuela's national election board announced the vote slated for April 22 had been pushed back to the second half of May, with a final date to be specified later, after a pact between Maduro’s government and some opposition parties.
The president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, dismissed the idea of holding legislative elections on the same day as the presidential election scheduled for April 22, as the ruling party has proposed.
Venezuela's questioned electoral council has set April 22 as the date for a controversial presidential election, which was supposed to occur late 2018. The opposition accuses President Nicolas Maduro of using to plan a second term for himself.
Opposition leaders in Venezuela have alleged fraud after electoral authorities claimed that Nicolás Maduro’s socialist party won 17 of 24 governorships in Sunday’s regional elections. On Sunday evening, National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) had won 17 out of 24 governorships and 54 percent of the votes. Turnout was reportedly at 61%.
Venezuela's election chief has denied a report that voter turnout numbers were manipulated and inflated by at least 1 million for this week's controversial election to choose an assembly to rewrite the national constitution.
Venezuela's opposition won control of the National Assembly by a landslide, delivering a major setback to the ruling party and altering the balance of power after almost 17 years of populist rule.
The Organization of American States (OAS), secretary general Luis Almagro condemned the killing in Venezuela of an opposition leader during a political rally ahead of the 6 December legislative election, and called for an immediate end to violence in the country.