Maduro was declared the winner in the disputed vote

President Nicolás Maduro has won Venezuela's presidential election, according to partial results announced by the electoral council.

The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso – who is very close to Mr. Maduro – said that with 80% of the votes counted, President Maduro received 51% of the votes, compared to 44% of his main rival.

Venezuela's opposition dismissed the CNE's announcement as a fraud and vowed to challenge the result.

It says that the candidate, Edmundo González, won with 70% of the vote and insisted that he is the rightful president.

The opposition said the vote tallies they received, as well as exit polls and a quick count, showed Mr González had a 40 percent lead over the incumbent.

Opposition parties have rallied behind Mr González in an attempt to oust President Maduro after 11 years in power.

Opinion polls conducted before the election had suggested that Mr González would outright defeat the president.

The outcome of the election will have consequences outside the South American country of 29.4 million people.

Over the past 10 years, 7.8 million people have fled Venezuela due to the economic and political crisis that has engulfed the country under Maduro's regime.

Polls conducted in the run-up to the election suggest that emigration is likely to increase, with one poll suggesting that one-third of the population will emigrate.

With migration being a hot topic in the US elections, the Washington government, as well as Latin American nations where Venezuelans are migrating in large numbers, are affected by what is happening in the Andean country.

Who Venezuela does business with is also important because the Andean country has the largest oil reserves in the world.

Mr Maduro blames US sanctions for his country's economic woes and has forged strong ties with China, Iran and Russia – countries that also have strong ties with the US.

A change of government could make Venezuela turn its back on these countries as well as its close partner, Cuba, and Mr. Maduro is expected to strengthen his relations with his allies if he continues to rule.

Many Venezuelans have been clamoring for change after 25 years of the Socialist PSUV party in power – first under the leadership of the late President Hugo Chávez, and after his death from cancer in 2013, under Nicolás Maduro.

And although it was widespread that the government might use fraud, the opposition hoped that their leadership would be so convincing, that it would thwart all attempts by the Maduro administration to “steal the election”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was one of those who expressed his doubts after the result was announced by the National Electoral Council, an organization full of people loyal to the government.

He said the US is “deeply concerned that the announced result does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people”.

The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, also said he found it hard to believe the result.

Mr Boric asked for “full disclosure of the minutes and the process, and that international observers are not committed to the government's account of the authenticity of the results”.

The Uruguayan president said of Maduro's government: “They were going to 'win' regardless of the actual results.”

Meanwhile, Mr Maduro's allies were quick to congratulate him.

The Cuban president said “the dignity and courage of the Venezuelan people have won over pressure and fraud”.

Mr Maduro described the result as a “victory for peace and stability” to jubilant supporters in Caracas.

He praised Venezuela's electoral system, describing it as transparent, and ridiculed the opposition, who he said “cries about fraud” in every election.

The opposition parties sent thousands of witnesses to polling stations across the country so they could announce their vote count.

However, a spokesman for the coalition led by Mr González said their witnesses were “forced to leave” at many polling stations.

This is not the first election whose results have been criticized. Mr Maduro's victory in 2018 was also widely dismissed as neither liberal nor fair.

The fear that the election will be marred by irregularities has also fueled President Maduro who has said that he will win by “tricksters or crooks”.

Voting in Venezuela is done electronically. Voters press a button assigned to their preferred candidate on a voting machine.

The electronic results are sent to the CNE headquarters, but the machine also prints a paper receipt which is then placed in the ballot box.

By law, parties are allowed to send witnesses to the counting of paper receipts at each polling station, but many are prohibited from doing so.

Their plan was to look at these figures to see if they correspond to the results announced by the CNE, but the opposition party said on Sunday that it had now been given the opportunity to come in under a third of the published receipts.