2018 Venezuelan presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 20 May 2018, with incumbent Nicolás Maduro being declared re-elected for a second six-year term. The original electoral date was scheduled for December 2018 but was subsequently pulled ahead to 22 April before being pushed back to 20 May. Some analysts described the poll as a sham election, as many prominent opposition parties had been barred from participating in it. The elections had the lowest voter turnout in Venezuela's democratic era.
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Turnout | 46.07% (per the National Electoral Council) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Percentages of vote for Maduro by state | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Politics of Venezuela |
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Venezuela portal
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Several Venezuelan NGOs, such as Foro Penal, Súmate, Voto Joven, the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory and the Citizen Electoral Network expressed their concern over the irregularities of the electoral schedule, including the lack of the Constituent Assembly's competencies to summon the elections, impeding participation of opposition political parties, and the lack of time for standard electoral functions. Because of this, the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Lima Group and countries including Australia and the United States rejected the electoral process. However, countries including Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Turkey and others recognized the election result.
The two leading candidates opposing Maduro, Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci, rejected the results, saying that the election was critically flawed by irregularities. Bertucci asked that the elections be repeated with Maduro being disqualified. Maduro was inaugurated on 10 January 2019, leading to a presidential crisis.