Venezuela's Maduro, opposition each claim presidential victory
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00:00The exit polls had suggested otherwise, but Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro held
00:04on to secure a third term with 51.2% of the vote, according to the National Electoral
00:10Council.
00:13There will be peace, stability and justice after July 28th, starting today.
00:21I am Nicolás Maduro Moros, the re-elected president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
00:29Maduro had warned of chaos if the opposition were to win the election, going so far as
00:33to use the term bloodbath.
00:35The opposition had been optimistic after the polls closed, expecting to win heavily, and
00:40opposition leader MarĂa Corina Machado cried foul once the results were announced.
00:47We want to tell all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect and
00:53it's Edmundo González Urrutia.
01:01We know it, everybody knows it.
01:07And according to this information, Edmundo González Urrutia received 70% of the votes
01:12in this election.
01:19Other countries in the Americas had contrasting reactions.
01:23Maduro's allies in Cuba, Honduras and Bolivia congratulated him, but other countries such
01:27as Peru, Costa Rica and Chile were sceptical about the results.
01:31U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had serious concerns that the results
01:36did not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.
01:40An estimated 12 million people cast their votes on Sunday.
01:43Oil-rich Venezuela had once been one of the wealthiest countries in South America, but
01:48has in recent years suffered a severe economic crisis.
01:51Its GDP has contracted by 80% in 10 years and 7 million people, a quarter of the population,
01:58have fled the country.