CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro won a new six-year term on Sunday, but his main rivals disavowed the election alleging massive irregularities in a process critics decried as a farce propping up a dictatorship. 
 
 Victory for the 55-year-old former bus driver, who replaced Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer in 2013, may trigger a new round of western sanctions against the socialist government as it grapples with a ruinous economic crisis. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is threatening moves against Venezuela’s already reeling oil sector. 
 
 Venezuela’s election board, run by Maduro loyalists, said he took 5.8 million votes, versus 1.8 million for his closest challenger Henri Falcon, a former governor who broke with an opposition boycott to stand. 
 
 “They underestimated me,” Maduro told cheering supporters on a stage outside Miraflores presidential palace in downtown Caracas as fireworks sounded and confetti fell on the crowd. 
 
 Turnout at the election was just 46.1 percent, the election board said, way down from the 80 percent registered at the last presidential vote in 2013. The opposition said that figure was inflated, putting participation at nearer 30 percent. 
 
 An electoral board source told Reuters 32.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots by 6 p.m. (2200 GMT) as most polls shut. 
 
 “The process undoubtedly lacks legitimacy and as such we do not recognize it,” said Falcon, a 56-year-old former state governor, looking downcast. 
 
 Maduro had welcomed Falcon’s candidacy, which gave some legitimacy to a process critics at home and around the world had condemned in advance as the “coronation” of a dictator. 
 
 Falcon’s quick rejection of Sunday’s election, and call for a new vote, was therefore a blow to the government’s strategy. 
 
 Falcon, a former member of the Socialist Party who went over to the opposition in 2010, said he was outraged at the government’s placing of nearly 13,000 pro-government stands called “red spots” close to polling stations nationwide. 
 
 Mainly poor Venezuelans were asked to scan state-issued “fatherland cards” at red tents after voting in hope of receiving a “prize” promised by Maduro, which opponents said was akin to vote-buying. 
 
 The “fatherland cards” are required to receive benefits including food boxes and money transfers. 
 
 A third presidential candidate, evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, followed Falcon in slamming irregularities during Sunday’s vote and calling for a new election. 
 
 Despite his unpopularity over a national economic meltdown, Maduro benefited on Sunday not just from the opposition boycott but also from a ban on his two most popular rivals and the liberal use of state resources in his campaign. 
 
 His tally, however, fell short of the 10 million votes he had said throughout the campaign he wanted to win. 
 
 (Graphic on Venezeula election, tmsnrt.rs/2LbYgAC) 
 
 FIGHTING “IMPERIALISM” 
 
 Maduro, the self-described “son” of Chavez, says he is battling an “imperialist” plot to crush socialism and take over Venezuela’s oil. Opponents say he has destroyed a once-wealthy economy and ruthlessly crushed dissent. 
 
 Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is surrounded by supporters as he speaks during a gathering after the results of the election were released, outside of the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, May 20, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins 
 
 Attendance appeared thin in many polling stations visited by Reuters reporters, from wealthy east Caracas to the Andean mountains near Colombia. There were lines, however, at poorer government strongholds, where the majority of voters interviewed said they were backing Maduro. 
 
 “I’m hungry and don’t have a job, but I’m sticking to Maduro,” said Carlos Rincones, 49, in the once-thriving industrial city of Valencia, accusing right-wing business owners of purposefully hiding food and hiking prices. 
 
 Many Venezuelans are disillusioned and angry over the election: they criticize Maduro for economic hardships and the opposition for its dysfunctional splits. 
 
 Reeling from a fifth year of recession, falling oil production and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela is seeing growing levels of malnutrition and hyperinflation, and mass emigration. 
 
 Venezuelan migrants staged small anti-Maduro protests in cities from Madrid to Miami. In the highland city of San Cristobal near Colombia, three cloth dolls representing widely loathed officials - Electoral Council head Tibisay Lucena, Socialist Party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello and Vice President Tareck El Aissami - were hung from a footbridge. 
 
 But streets were calm, with children playing soccer on one road in San Cristobal blocked off at past elections to accommodate long voter lines. For many Venezuelans, Sunday was a day to look for scant food or stock up on water, which is increasingly running short because of years of underinvestment. 
 
 “I’m not voting - what’s the point if we already know the result? I prefer to come here to get water rather than waste my time,” said Raul Sanchez, filling a jug from a tap by a busy road in the arid northwestern city of Punto Fijo because his community has not had running water for 26 days. 
 
 With the election behind him, Maduro may choose to deepen a purge of critics within the ruling “Chavismo” movement. 
 
 He faces a Herculean task to turn around the moribund economy, with the bolivar currency down 99 percent in the past year and inflation at an annual 14,000 percent, according to the National Assembly. 
 
 (Graphic on Latin American elections, tmsnrt.rs/2rAQ4l1) 
 
 Slideshow (32 Images) 
 
 (Reuters Venezuela election coverage on Twitter @ReutersVzla) ||||| Anti-government presidential candidate Henri Falcon addresses supporters in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, May 20, 2018. Falcon said that the presidential election was marred by irregularities and lacks... (Associated Press) 
 
 Anti-government presidential candidate Henri Falcon addresses supporters in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, May 20, 2018. Falcon said that the presidential election was marred by irregularities and lacks legitimacy. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) (Associated Press) 
 
 CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan officials declared socialist leader Nicolas Maduro the easy winner of Sunday's presidential election, while his leading challenger questioned the legitimacy of a vote marred by irregularities and called for a new ballot to prevent a brewing social crisis from exploding. 
 
 The National Election Council announced that with almost 93 percent of polling stations reporting, Maduro won nearly 68 percent of the votes, beating nearest challenger Henri Falcon by more than 40 points. 
 
 The disputed victory is likely to heighten international pressure on Maduro, as voter turnout was the lowest in a presidential race since the start of Venezuela's leftist revolution two decades ago. Even as voting was taking place Sunday, a senior State Department official warned that the U.S. might press ahead on threats of imposing crippling oil sanctions on the nation that sits atop the world's largest crude reserves. 
 
 The election "without any doubt lacks legitimacy and we categorically refuse to recognize this process," Falcon told supporters before the results were announced. 
 
 Falcon was joined in his call for a new election by third-place finisher Javier Bertucci, who got around 11 percent of the vote. Bertucci, a TV evangelist, stopped short of challenging the results, saying what he called a mistaken opposition boycott that led to the lowest voter turnout in two decades of socialist rule also boosted Maduro. 
 
 But he said that in the event of a new vote, Maduro should do the courageous thing and desist from running. If Maduro presses forward, he said, Venezuela would explode from a social crisis marked by widespread food shortages and hyperinflation before his new six-year term starts next January. 
 
 Maduro immediately called for dialogue with his presidential opponents. But he showed no sign of replaying Sunday's vote. 
 
 "The electoral processes have ended for now," he said, saying that he wanted to spend the next two years before scheduled congressional elections to focus on repairing the economy. 
 
 He also slammed Falcon, who like him was an acolyte of the late President Hugo Chavez. Maduro said he had never seen a candidate dispute results even before they were announced. 
 
 "Sooner or later, they all break in the face of threats from the imperialists," he said, appeling to the U.S. to also reconsider its belligerent stance toward his government. 
 
 Both of Maduro's opponents accused electoral authorities of turning a blind eye to a slew of blatant violations, including the establishment of red tents just steps away from voting centers where ruling party activists scanned on cellphones government-issued "Fatherland Cards." Many voters said they hoped it would bring them a cash bonus or even a free apartment. 
 
 Under Venezuela's electoral law, any political activity must take place at least 650 feet (200 meters) from voting centers. National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena acknowledged a handful of complaints, but insisted they were minor compared to past elections. 
 
 Falcon said his campaign found "red points" at 86 perecent of polling sites nationwide. He called them a "pressure mechanism, an element of political and social blackmail" directed at the poor. 
 
 Voting centers across Venezuela appeared largely empty for the election despite assurances from government officials that millions had turned out to vote by midmorning. 
 
 Turnout in the previous three presidential elections averaged around 79 percent. Chavez, after taking office in 1999, eliminated mandatory voting in Venezuela. 
 
 Opposition leaders said the lifeless voting centers were evidence that Venezuelans heeded their call to abstain from voting in an election they contended was certain to be rigged in favor of Maduro's socialist policies. 
 
 Opinion polls say the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans distrust the electoral council. Turnout figures in last year's elections for a constitutional assembly, which the opposition also boycotted, were inflated by at least 1 million votes, according to the company that provided technology for Venezuela's electronic voting machines for more than a decade. 
 
 Both Maduro and the two anti-government presidential candidates who broke with the opposition's push to boycott the election had urged voters to go to the polls. 
 
 Maduro, setting an example for government supporters who he called on to vote early, cast his ballot in Caracas shortly after fireworks and loud speakers blasting a military hymn roused Venezuelans from sleep around 5 a.m. 
 
 He said Venezuelans would provide an example of democracy to the world and brushed back suggestions he was taking the country down an authoritarian path. 
 
 "It's offensive when they say the Venezuelan people are falling under dictatorship," he said after voting. 
 
 Maduro also said that if he won the election, he would seek an understanding with his opponents on a way forward for the crisis-wracked country. "I'm going to stubbornly and obsessively insist in dialogue for peace," he said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Scott Smith on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScottSmithAP 
 
 Joshua Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman ||||| Main rivals both declare poll, which was boycotted by the opposition, illegitimate due to alleged widespread irregularities 
 
 Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has shrugged off international condemnation and allegations of vote buying and electoral fraud to claim a second six-year term at the helm of his crisis-stricken nation. 
 
 Addressing crowds of supporters outside the presidential palace in Caracas on Sunday night, Maduro hailed the “impeccable electoral process” that had returned him to power with 67.7% of the vote. 
 
 
 
 US rejects 'insult to democracy' as Venezuela president Maduro pursues second term Read more 
 
 “This was a historic day! The day of a heroic victory! The day of a beautiful victory - of a truly popular victory,” Maduro shouted. 
 
 “The whole of Venezuela has triumphed! Democracy has triumphed! Peace has triumphed! Constitutionality has triumphed [These were] elections that were constitutional, legitimate and legal,” he insisted, before claiming: “We have a president of the people! A working president!” 
 
 
 
 The 14-nation Lima group of Latin American countries plus Canada issued a statement on Monday saying it did not recognise the legitimacy of Venezuela’s presidential election. 
 
 The statement said the countries would call their ambassadors back from Caracas for consultations and hold a meeting to coordinate a regional response to outflows of Venezuelans “who have been obligated to abandon their country”. 
 
 Venezuela’s election board put turnout at just 46.1%, way down from the 80% registered at the last presidential vote in 2013, due to a boycott by Venezuela’s mainstream opposition. 
 
 
 
 Tibisay Lucena, the head of Venezuela’s electoral commission, told reporters Maduro had received more than 5.8m votes compared to the 1.8m of his nearest rival, Henri Falcón. 
 
 As results came out, Maduro supporters reportedly let off fireworks in poor Caracas neighbourhoods and danced to Latin pop around the downtown Miraflores presidential palace. 
 
 But even before Maduro’s victory speech, domestic opponents and much of the international community were denouncing the election as a “fraud foretold”. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Javier Bertucci listen to him in Caracas Photograph: Fernando Llano/AP 
 
 Henri Falcón claimed widespread vote buying and electoral irregularities meant the election was “illegitimate”. “We do not regonize this electoral process as valid,” he told reporters. “As far as we are concerned there has been no election. There must be new elections in Venezuela.” 
 
 
 
 “All Venezuelans know what happened today,” tweeted Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the 2013 election and was subsequently barred from running again. “Our beloved Venezuela must have truly free and democratic elections where the will of our People is reflected in the result.” 
 
 
 
 The Observer view on Venezuela’s need for profound change, not a sham poll | Observer editorial Read more 
 
 Luz Mely Reyes, a prominent Venezuelan journalist, tweeted: “Today is a sad day for democracy. The government clings on and manipulates, the opposition is divided and lacking a strategy. And voters are without guides or leadership.” 
 
 The United States’ mission to the United Nations indicated it would reject the result. “Today’s so-called election in Venezuela is an insult to democracy ... It’s time for Maduro to go,” it tweeted. 
 
 The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, said that his country, “like the majority of democratic countries”, would not recognise the vote. “Venezuela’s elections do not meet the minimum standards for a true democracy. They are not clean or legitimate elections and they do not represent the free and sovereign will of the Venezuelan people,” Piñera wrote. 
 
 Maduro dismissed such criticisms in his late-night victory address and vowed to work swiftly to stablize his country’s economy, amidst a calamitous economic meltdown that saw the economy shrink by 13% last year and has seen more than a million people flee abroad since 2015. 
 
 
 
 “You have put your trust in me and I will pay back this infinite, loving trust,” he said. 
 
 
 
 To cries of “Vamos, Nico!”, Maduro added: “Today I love the Venezuelan people more than ever before!” ||||| People search lists for their voting station outside a polling center during mayoral elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017. Venezuelans will choose hundreds of mayors on Sunday in elections... (Associated Press) 
 
 People search lists for their voting station outside a polling center during mayoral elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017. Venezuelans will choose hundreds of mayors on Sunday in elections pitting candidates backed by President Nicolas Maduro against a fractured opposition still bruised... (Associated Press) 
 
 CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's ruling socialists swept nearly all the races for mayors across the country, and President Nicolas Maduro is now threatening to ban key opposition parties from future elections in the oil-rich country wracked by economic crisis. 
 
 Hundreds of supporters shouted "Go Home, Donald Trump" to interrupt Maduro at a rally late Sunday in the colonial center of Caracas, where he announced that pro-government candidates grabbed more than 300 of the 335 mayoral offices. 
 
 Sunday's voting marked the last nationwide elections before next year's presidential race when Maduro is expected to seek another term despite his steep unpopularity. 
 
 "The imperialists have tried to set fire to Venezuela to take our riches," Maduro told the crowd. "We've defeated the American imperialists with our votes, our ideas, truths, reason and popular will." 
 
 The elections played out as Venezuelans struggle with triple-digit inflation, shortages of food and medicine, and charges that Maduro's government has undermined democracy by imprisoning dissidents and usurping the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. 
 
 Three of the four biggest opposition parties refused to take part in Sunday's contests, protesting what they called an electoral system rigged by a "dictator." The last time the opposition refused to compete in congressional elections in 2005 it strengthened the government's hand for years. 
 
 After dropping his vote into the cardboard ballot box earlier in the day, Maduro responded to the boycott. 
 
 "A party that has not participated today cannot participate anymore," Maduro said. "They will disappear from the political map." 
 
 This has been a turbulent year for Venezuela, which holds the world's largest oil reserves but has been battered by low crude prices and a crash in production. The country saw months of protests that left more than 120 dead earlier this year, and it is now facing U.S. economic sanctions as it seeks to refinance a huge international debt. 
 
 The struggles have caused the president's approval rating to plunge, although the opposition has been largely unable to capitalize on Maduro's unpopularity. 
 
 Maduro said the third electoral victory for the ruling party in little more than four months signaled that the socialist "Chavista" revolution begun by the late President Hugo Chavez has defeated its opponents who are intent on sowing violence in the country. 
 
 In a country of 30 million people, 9 million cast ballots — about half of eligible voters. Maduro's opponents on social media questioned the figures. 
 
 The mayoral elections follow a crushing defeat of opposition candidates in October's gubernatorial elections, where anti-Maduro candidates won just five of 23 races amid allegations of official vote-buying and other irregularities. 
 
 Given the opposition's disarray, political analysts said they doubted Maduro's opponents would be able to rally behind a single candidate in next year's presidential election. 
 
 "These were absolutely predictable results," local pollster Luis Vicente Leon said on Twitter. "It's absurd to think that an abstaining political force can win the majority of mayorships."
– Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has been declared the winner of an election widely denounced as a "fraud foretold." According to figures released by the National Election Council, Maduro was elected to a second six-year term after winning around 68% of the vote, more than 40 points more than his nearest rival, Henri Falcon, the AP reports. Before the result was announced Sunday, US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said the US would not recognize the election winner, reports Reuters. He said the US is considering oil sanctions on Venezuela, though Washington wants to target "corrupt regime officials," not "damage the country in a way that makes it difficult to repair after democracy is restored." Maduro told supporters outside the presidential palace in Caracas that his "truly popular victory" had been achieved through an "impeccable electoral process," but Falcon and other critics said irregularities including widespread vote-buying made the results invalid and called for new elections, the Guardian reports. Reuters notes that after voting, residents of the crisis-stricken country were asked to scan their government-issued "fatherland cards"—which are required to claim benefits—at pro-Maduro tents near polling stations to qualify for a "prize" from the socialist leader. Officials said turnout out was 46.1%, down from 80% in 2013, though critics said even that number was inflated and the true figure was closer to 30%.