Venezuela opposition looks for answers after election loss
CARACAS, Venezuela — Voting sites were shifted to distant neighbourhoods with rampant crime. Ballots featured the faces of opposition candidates who lost in primaries. The government-stacked National Electoral Council denied monitoring accreditation to one of Venezuela’s most important independent observers.
The opposition pointed on Monday to those irregularities and others that began the moment regional elections were called to explain a staggering loss in gubernatorial contests it had expected to win in Sunday’s voting.
“We encountered an absolutely fraudulent system,” said Carlos Ocariz, the opposition’s candidate in Miranda, the nation’s second most populous state where the candidate of the ruling socialist party won.
Opposition leaders vowed to contest the vote and called for protests, though there was no sign of the mass anti-government demonstrations that wracked Venezuela this year.