VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro has won a third term in power, the National Electoral Council announced early yesterday, though the anti-socialist opposition immediately contested the outcome and the United States refused to recognise it.

Mr Maduro received 51 per cent of the votes cast on Sunday, with 44 per cent going to retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, according to official results.

But opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed that Mr Gonzalez had won an “overwhelming” victory, based on voting tallies that the campaign received from representatives at about 40 per cent of polling stations.

“Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” Mr Gonzalez said, insinuating that he had been cheated of victory.

The results from each of the 30,000 polling stations were not released immediately, but officials promised that they would be made public in the “coming hours.”

Opposition supporters in the capital Caracas greeted the official announcement with a mixture of anger, tears and loud pot-banging, while several foreign governments, including the Biden administration, refused to recognise the results, while gigantic crowds celebrated the win in Venezuela’s capital.

 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed to have “serious concerns” that the official results didn’t reflect how people voted, though observers including former US president Jimmy Carter have described the Venezuelan electoral system as the world’s most secure.

And Chilean President Gabriel Boric, elected as a leftwinger but who has regularly attacked Venezuela’s socialist government, described the results as “difficult to believe.”

US economic sanctions aimed at toppling Mr Maduro after his 2018 re-election, which Washington and other foreign governments claimed was illegitimate, have deepened an economic crisis sparked by plummeting prices for oil, Venezuela’s most important export.

In Britain, a Venezuela Solidarity Campaign spokesperson said: “Hostile statements towards Venezuela from the US, Britain and allies after the election will be used to again justify the continuation of illegal sanctions.

“These have inflicted great damage, distress and death on the country.

“What is needed now instead is the international community should respect the results of the election, alongside dropping these deadly sanctions for good.”

Regional allies Cuba and Nicaragua both applauded Mr Maduro’s re-election.

In a post on the X social media platform, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that he had phoned his Venezuelan counterpart to congratulate him “for the historic electoral victory achieved.”

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and vice-president Rosario Murillo sent a letter to Mr Maduro, saluting the “great victory that this heroic people gives to the eternal commander, on his birthday,” referring to the 70th anniversary of the birth of Mr Maduro’s late predecessor Hugo Chavez. China also congratulated Mr Maduro.