Key moments which triggered Venezuela protests

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has five members who are nominated by the legislative body, the National Assembly.

While it was created as an independent body to organise and oversee elections, it has long been dominated by allies of the governing PSUV party.

Its president, Elvis Amoroso, is a former lawmaker for President Maduro’s socialist PSUV party who went to work as Mr Maduro’s legal adviser.

Before being named head of the CNE, he served as comptroller general. In that post, he barred opposition leader María Corina Machado from running for office for 15 years.

As head of the CNE, he revoked the invitation which had been issued to the European Union to send independent electoral observers to monitor the presidential election.

In the early hours on Monday, Mr Amoroso announced that with 80% of the votes counted, President Maduro had an “unassailable lead” with 51% of the vote.

He said that the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had 44% of the vote.

However, the CNE did not provide a detailed breakdown of the results from individual polling stations.