CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela was tense on Tuesday as incumbent President Nicolás Maduro and the country’s main opposition coalition both claimed that they had won Sunday’s presidential election.
The national electoral authority proclaimed Maduro the winner. The opposition, represented, by Edmundo González said it has evidence to the contrary.
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Voters line up outside a polling station that reads in Spanish "Vote" during the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Electoral officials tally votes after polls closed for presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
An election officials tallies votes after polls closed for the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Alejandra Rivas votes during presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters line up outside a polling station during the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, left, and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez hold up vote tally sheets during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez ride atop a truck during a protest against official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the vote. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez holds up vote tally sheets from the top of a truck during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, left, and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez hold up vote tally sheets from the top of a truck during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Electoral officials tally votes after polls closed for presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Electoral authorities installed more than 30,000 voting machines, and by law the opposition had the right to have representatives at all voting centers. But not all were allowed in Sunday or were ousted before polls closed.
After the polls close, Venezuela’s electronic voting machines can print sheets tallying all the votes each counted. Experts say the best way to clear up the dispute is to release those sheets. But the National Electoral Council has not done so.
Here’s a look at what has been said and what is known:
The main discussion is coming down to the sheets. In case of any dispute, one way of solving it is by checking the tallies the government has against what the opposition parties have.
The electronic machines provide every voter a paper receipt that shows which candidate they chose. Voters are supposed to deposit their receipts at ballot boxes before exiting the polls.
After polls close, each machine prints a tally sheet showing the candidates’ names and the votes each received. Party representatives stationed at polling sites throughout election day get a copy of the tally sheet, and electoral authorities keep another one.
But the ruling party wields tight control over the voting system, both through a loyal five-member electoral council and a network of longtime local party coordinators who get near unrestricted access to voting centers. Those coordinators, some of whom are responsible for handing out government benefits including subsidized food, have blocked representatives of opposition parties from entering voting centers as allowed by law to witness the voting process, vote counting and, crucially, to obtain a copy of the machines’ final tally sheets.
On its website, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council traditionally posts vote counts for every machine. It has never posted images of the tally sheets.
The president of the council, Elvis Amoroso, said Monday that Maduro got 51.2% of the votes, or more than 5.1 million votes. González garnered 44%, or more than 4.4 million votes, he said.
Amoroso said the other 8 presidential candidates got a combined total of 4% or more than 462,000 votes.
He said those numbers were based on a review of 80% of the tally sheets. He did not show the sheets.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Monday that González got more than 6.2 million votes and Maduro got more than 2.7 million votes.
Machado did not offer totals for the other eight candidates.
She said those numbers were based on a review of 73.2% of the tally sheets. She did not show any tally sheet but she directed voters to a website where they can use their ID number to look up an image of the sheet that corresponds to the machine where they voted.
The National Electoral Council does not have the obligation to post the tally sheets on its website — which has been down since Monday. But the opposition, electoral experts and some foreign governments disputing the official results are urging the sheets’ release.
On Monday, Machado announced the opposition had created a searchable website with images of every tally sheet that opposition poll representatives were able to obtain. Machado said the information was also being shared with the international community.
Voters line up outside a polling station that reads in Spanish "Vote" during the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Electoral officials tally votes after polls closed for presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
An election officials tallies votes after polls closed for the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Alejandra Rivas votes during presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters line up outside a polling station during the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, left, and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez hold up vote tally sheets during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez ride atop a truck during a protest against official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the vote. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez holds up vote tally sheets from the top of a truck during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, left, and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez hold up vote tally sheets from the top of a truck during a protest against the official presidential election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro the winner in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, two days after the election. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Electoral officials tally votes after polls closed for presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
DUBLIN (AP) — Veteran politician Micheál Martin is set to become Ireland's prime minister for a second time on Wednesday when lawmakers formally approve him as head of a coalition government.
The confirmation comes almost two months after an election in which Martin’s Fianna Fáil party won the most seats, but not enough to govern alone.
After weeks of talks, the long-dominant center-right parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael agreed to form a coalition with the support of several independent lawmakers.
Under the deal, Martin. 64, will be taoiseach, or prime minister, for three years, with Fine Gael’s Simon Harris – the outgoing taoiseach – as his deputy. The two politicians will then swap jobs for the rest of the five-year term.
Members of both parties have ratified the government agreement, and Matin is set to be confirmed by members of the Dáil, parliament’s lower house, on Wednesday. He will then be formally appointed to the job by President Michael D. Higgins before appointing his Cabinet.
In Ireland’s Nov. 29 election, voters bucked a global trend that saw incumbent governments ousted around the world in 2024. Fianna Fail won 48 of the 174 legislative seats and Fine Gael 38. They’ve secured backing to govern from the mostly conservative Regional Independent Group, which will be given two ministerial positions.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil share broadly similar center-right policies but a century-old rivalry stemming from their origins on opposing sides of Ireland’s civil war in the 1920s. They formed an alliance after the 2020 election ended in a virtual dead heat.
Their new agreement shuts out left-of-center party Sinn Fein, which will stay in opposition despite winning 39 seats. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have refused to work with them because of their historic ties with the Irish Republican Army during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
The new government faces huge pressure to ease rising homelessness, driven by soaring rents and property prices, and to better absorb a growing number of asylum-seekers.
The cost of living — especially Ireland’s acute housing crisis — was a dominant topic in the election campaign, and immigration has become an emotive and challenging issue in a country of 5.4 million people long defined by emigration.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and deputy leader Jack Chambers during the Fianna Fail ard fheis conference at the Radisson Hotel, in Dublin, Sunday Jan. 19, 2025. (Gareth Chaney/PA via AP)
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin speaks to the media, in Dublin, Sunday Jan. 19, 2025. (Gareth Chaney/PA via AP)