President of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Vicente Díaz, has claimed that there is no possibility that Sunday’s elections will have fraudulent results due to the fact that all of the voting machines, local councils and vote-counting committees are shielded, anonymous and “bulletproof”.

Díaz stated “I’m sure that both candidates would be happy to accept fair defeat. Whoever loses will accept the results because their technical team will have been there, testing the software and monitoring witnesses involved in the process.”

According to the head of the electoral accompaniment mission of the Union of South American Countries (UNASUR), Carlos Álvarez, there is “not even a small chance of the results being fraudulent”, saying that “Venezuela currently possesses one of the strongest and most technologically advanced electoral systems in the region of Latin America, which ensures transparency, control and vigilance at the polls.”

Alvárez reaffirmed this, explaining that in highly polarised societies such as Venezuela there are frequent accusations of fraud in voting, usually spurred on by the losing political party. This, he says, adds to the notion that developed-country organisations such as those from the US or Europe should observe elections to ensure their accuracy.

International figures have given their support to this issue: Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa affirmed his belief in seeing Sunday’s elections achieve a democratic outcome but warned against a “campaign to create doubts about the electoral result”. Barack Obama also expressed his hopes for “free and just” elections in Venezuela.

Opposition candidate Fabio Gadea has rejected the presidential election results, arguing that “they did not reflect people’s wishes.” The elections were held this Sunday and, according to electoral authority CSE, Daniel Ortega has won with 62.65% of the votes after 85.8% of the votes have been counted.

The leader of the Liberal Independent Party (PLI), who got 30.96% of the votes, argued that he had ”well-founded suspicions that a fraud of an unprecedented nature and proportion” had taken place. “At this moment we cannot accept the results presented by CSE, since they do not represent people’s wishes, but that of CSE itself.”

Representatives of PLI have stated that their parallel counting showed signs of an even race, whilst unaccredited independent electoral observers pointed to reports of fraud. Gadea called on his supporters to wait for “instructions which [they] will receive from the political council of PLI alliance.”

Meanwhile, both the Organisation of American States and European Union representatives in the country reported that the elections seem to have been held under normal conditions.

The president of CSE and the secretary general of the Centro-American Integration System (SICA) congratulated Ortega for the results.

Most of the votes casted by Bolivians during an election of top judges were rendered void as voters spoilt their ballot papers or left them blank. The opposition parties had urged people to treat their vote as an unofficial referendum on president Evo Morales’ government. As a result, about 45% of ballot papers were spoilt and 15% were left blank.

“Today we did not elect judges,” said Juan del Granado, leader of the opposition MSN party on Sunday. “Today the majority of the country has spoken out against a government characterized by authoritarianism.”

The judicial elections were Morales’ flagship policy to show he is leading a democratic government, giving power to the indigenous majority.

Morales refused to comment on the void ballot papers, but he told reporters in La Paz that he was happy with the high turnout, which accounted for eighty percent of the population according to official numbers. “Those who tried to boycott these elections failed,” he said.