Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, securing over 50% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council. However, the opposition contests the results.

The National Electoral Council announced that Maduro received 51% of the vote, while the leading opposition candidate, Edmundo González, garnered 44% support. These figures were based on 80% of voting stations and were described as an irreversible trend by Elvis Amoroso, the Council’s head.

Despite Maduro being declared the winner of a third term, the opposition claimed victory, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government regarding the election outcome.

The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately release the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths, hindering the opposition’s ability to challenge the results. The opposition claimed to have data for only around 30% of the ballot boxes.

“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” stated González.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado asserted that González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado revealed that the opposition had voting results from approximately 40% of ballot boxes across the country, with more expected overnight.

Officials and lawmakers in the U.S. and other nations expressed skepticism regarding the validity of the election results after Maduro was declared the victor.

Speaking in Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.

Blinken asserted that the U.S. feared the result did not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people and called for election officials to immediately release the full results. He also stated that the U.S. and the international community would respond accordingly.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wrote on the social media platform X that the “Maduro regime in #Venezuela has just carried out the most predictable and ridiculous sham election in modern history.”

Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font also wrote on X that “the delivery of the results of this transcendental election in Venezuela must be transparent, timely and fully reflect the popular will expressed at the polls.”

“The international community, of which Chile is a part of, will not accept anything else,” he said.

Opposition representatives in Venezuela stated that tallies they collected from campaign representatives at 30% of voting centers in the country showed González defeating the president.