Venezuela: Electoral Body Ratifies Maduro's New Mandate

Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed Tuesday as president of Venezuela for the period 2019 - 2025, after being elected in Sunday’s elections with 68 percent of the vote.

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Maduro received the presidency’s credentials before the authorities of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the rest of the country's institutions, as well as the international observer missions.

"It is the faithful expression of the will of Venezuelans," said the president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena, who also recalled that these elections were held in the midst of a campaign "in networks and media around the world to promote abstention and lynching of candidacies."

In a speech after receiving the credentials, Maduro said that Venezuela faces unconventional forms of war that seek to colonize it again and destroy its democracy but nevertheless the country and its people have prevailed.

“A miracle brings us here. How many obstacles we have overcome. The maker of the miracle is the people of Venezuela, with their strength,” Maduro told the crowd at the CNE. “Venezuela is capable of overcoming any challenge, and has the democratic and institutional maturity and strength of conscience.”

He further spoke of the electoral system in the country and its transparency and independence. "Venezuela is the only country in the world that has the Electoral branch Power, it is a creation of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, and Comandante Chávez proposed it in the 1999 Constitution."

In the elections this Sunday, the candidate of the Broad Front of the Homeland was elected with more than six million votes, a figure that triples the vote reached by his closest contender, Henri Falcón who came second with almost two million votes.
The election day was attended by more than 150 international observers from 40 countries, who verified the transparency and reliability of the electoral system.

They stressed that the world must recognize the result of the electoral day because it is the reflection of the popular will.
"Faced with the factors that seek to create matrices of fraud on the elections of May 20, those who believe in voting as a way of meeting and concord will defend the results of this process," said Lucena.