Venezuela election: UN slams repression and lack of transparency

Protests erupted after the CNE, which is dominated by government allies, declared Mr Maduro the winner without publishing detailed voting tallies.

The opposition says the tallies prove that its candidate, Edmundo González, won by a wide margin. It has uploaded copies collected by its observers on election night to the internet.

These tallies – which have been reviewed by independent observers and media – suggest Mr González won 67% of the vote, compared to Mr Maduro’s 30%.

On Tuesday, a panel of UN experts invited by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council to follow the election made its preliminary results public.

The experts found that the election day had taken place “in a largely peaceful environment” and was “logistically well organised”.

But they concluded that the way the CNE had announced the results “fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures that are essential to holding credible elections”.

In particular, the UN experts highlighted the CNE’s failure to publish “any results (or results broken down by polling stations), to support their oral announcement” declaring Mr Maduro the winner.

They said that this failure “had no precedent in contemporary democratic elections”.