Politique
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Chief of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, on Tuesday announced an end of the auditing process of the contested April 14 presidential elections, reaffirming that President Nicolas Maduro won with 50. 61 percent of the votes.
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In a nationally televised broadcast, Lucena said the auditing concluded "without a discrepancy" with the earlier tally, after recounting 99.98 percent of the votes in a process that lasted more than a month.
The opposition, which had demanded the recount, rejected the results of the audit.
Opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who lost to Maduro by a slight margin in the April elections, vowed to continue to challenge the results.
"Things are not going to change from one day to the next," said Capriles, calling the recount, which began on April 29 and concluded on June 9, "a bogus audit."
In the April presidential elections, Maduro garnered 7,587,532 votes, or 50.61 percent, while Capriles obtained 7,363,264 votes, or 49.12 percent. Maduro was inaugurated as president of Venezuela on April 19.
The CNE chief said the audit proved Venezuela's electoral system is "armored against fraud and error."
"The end of the verification permits us to say, once again, that the system is transparent, robust and inviolable, and reflects the voters' will," said Lucena.
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