Venezuela election: Caracas echoes with loud protests against Maduro’s victory claim

The BBC spoke to a number of people who attended one protest in a densely-populated area known as La Lucha, meaning “the fight”.

Paola Sarzalejo, 41, said the vote was “terrible, fraud. We won with 70%, but they did the same thing to us again. They took the elections from us again.

“We want a better future for our youth, for our country.”

Her father Miguel, 64, agreed, saying: “He lost the elections, he has no right to be there right now.”

He added: “We want a better future for the youth because if not they will leave the country. One where they can work well and earn well. We have a rich country and he is destroying everything.

“If the youth all leave, only old people will be left in Venezuela, only senior citizens.”

Cristobal Martinez, draped in a Venezuelan flag, said he thought the election was a “fraud”.

He said most young people in La Lucha and surrounding areas had voted in an election that was particularly important for young people as “many of us are unemployed” and “the majority do not study”.

“It was the first time I have voted in my life. I was there from six in the morning until approximately nine in the morning and I saw a lot of people mobilising in the street.

“There was a lot of discontent towards the government. The majority of people were participating for change.”

He said that while President Maduro had been in office for a long time there had not been “any change” and it had been “worse since President Chavez died”.

He accused some older people who sympathised with the government of living off bonuses or food handouts whereas “we want a change, we want decent jobs, a good future for our country”.

Mr Martinez said he wanted “people from other countries to help us… so that a disaster doesn’t happen like in previous times”.