Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez claims his campaign has the proof it needs to show he is the winner of the country's highly anticipated presidential election whose victory authorities handed to President Nicolas Maduro.
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As thousands of people demonstrated across Venezuela, Gonzalez and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told supporters in Caracas they have obtained more than 70 per cent of the tally sheets from Sunday's disputed election, and they show Gonzalez ahead of Maduro.
"I speak to you with the calmness of the truth," Gonzalez said on Monday.
"The will expressed yesterday through your vote will be respected ... We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our victory."
As he spoke, demonstrators took to the streets to protest what they said was an attempt by Maduro to steal the election in which both candidates claimed victory.
Shortly after the National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro's ruling party, declared him the winner, angry protesters began marching through Caracas and cities across Venezuela.
The electoral body's announcement earned him a third six-year term.
In Caracas, the protests were mostly peaceful, but a brawl broke out when dozens of riot gear-clad police blocked the caravan in an upper-class district, and used tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
The demonstrations followed an election that reflected hopes that Venezuela could avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of single-party rule.
The winner was to take control of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change.
"We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of the powerful," Maduro said in a nationally televised ceremony.
"An attempt is being made to impose a coup d'etat in Venezuela again of a fascist and counter-revolutionary nature," he said, adding that Venezuela's "law will be respected".
Officials delayed the release of detailed vote tallies from Sunday's election after proclaiming Maduro the winner with 51 per cent of the vote, compared with 44 per cent for Gonzalez, a retired diplomat.
The competing claims set up a high-stakes stand-off.
"Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened," Gonzalez said earlier.
But he and his allies asked supporters to remain calm and called on the government to avoid stoking conflict.
Several foreign governments, including the US and the European Union, held off recognising the election results.
After failing to oust Maduro during three rounds of demonstrations since 2014, the opposition put its faith in the ballot box.
The country sits atop the world's largest oil reserves and once boasted Latin America's most advanced economy.
But after Maduro took the helm, it tumbled into a free fall marked by plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages of basic goods and hyperinflation.
US oil sanctions sought to force Maduro from power after his 2018 re-election, which dozens of countries condemned as illegitimate.
But the sanctions only accelerated the exodus of some 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled their crisis-stricken nation.
The official results came as a shock to many who had celebrated what they believed was a landslide victory for Gonzalez.
Gabriel Boric, the leftist leader of Chile, called the results "difficult to believe", while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had "serious concerns" that the announced tally did not reflect the actual votes or the will of the people.
Machado said the margin of Gonzalez's victory was "overwhelming", based on tallies the campaign received from representatives at polling stations.
Gonzalez, 74, was unknown until he was tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled supreme court from running for any office for 15 years.
Authorities set the election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former president Hugo Chavez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro.
But Maduro and his United Socialist Party are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies that spurred hunger, crippled the oil industry and separated families due to migration.
Australian Associated Press
