Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro becomes President for third time

Caracas, July 29 Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) announced on Monday that President Nicolas Maduro has won the presidential election and will govern the country from 2025 to 2031.

Early Monday, CNE President Elvis Amoroso reported that the result indicated an irreversible trend in favour of Maduro.

The bulletin for Maduro's victory was issued after 80 per cent of the polling stations had been counted, Xinhua news agency reported.

Amoroso emphasised that it is "a strong and irreversible trend" and that voter turnout was 59 per cent of those eligible to vote.

In total, Maduro received 5,150,092 valid votes, representing 51.2 per cent of the counted votes, according to CNE.

Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, from the Unitary Platform coalition, received 4,445,978 votes, or 44.2 per cent of the votes.

Maduro was running against nine presidential candidates. Of all the candidates, Edmundo Gonzalez, a retired diplomat, was seen as a significant challenge to Maduro.

More than 21.6 million Venezuelans voted to choose President Nicolas Maduro from among the 10 presidential candidates.

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