President Nicolas Maduro was declared winner of Venezuela's election Sunday in a poll rejected as invalid by his rivals, who called for fresh elections to be held later this year.
With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, Maduro had 67.7 percent of the vote, with his main rival Henri Falcon taking 21.2 percent, the National Election Council chief Tibisay Lucena announced.
Polls had put Maduro neck-and-neck with Falcon, a former army officer.
Venezuelans, reeling under a devastating economic crisis, went to the polls Sunday in an election boycotted by the opposition and condemned by much of the international community.
Maduro, the political heir to the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez, has presided over an implosion of once-wealthy oil producer Venezuela's economy since taking office in 2013.
Hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, rising crime and broken water, power and transportation networks have sparked violent unrest and left Maduro with a 75 percent disapproval rating.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the South American country in a mass exodus in recent years.
Wearing a bright red shirt that identifies him as a "Chavista," the president arrived early at a Caracas polling station along with his wife, former prosecutor Cilia Flores.
"Your vote decides: ballots or bullets, motherland or colony, peace or violence, independence or subordination," said the 55-year-old former bus driver and union leader.
The comments reflected previous statements by the socialist leader that Venezuela is the victim of an "economic war" waged by the conservative opposition and outside powers such as the United States aimed at toppling him.
As the polls opened, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the election as a "sham".
Small queues of voters, mostly Maduro supporters, formed at some polling stations, but others appeared half empty, AFP correspondents reported from several cities.
Hundreds of Venezuelans took to the streets in several Latin American capitals, including Bogota, Lima and Buenos Aires - as well as in Madrid - to denounce the vote.
The biggest protest was in Chile's capital Santiago, where more than 1,000 demonstrated against the election. Chile granted 73,000 visas to Venezuelans fleeing the country last year.
'A dog's life'
"I am not taking part in this fraud," said retired teacher Maria Barrantes, 62. "What we are living through is a disaster."
Maritza Palencia, 58, said she would vote for "change," adding that her four sons had "fled" to Colombia to earn a better living.
"For the first time in my life, I am not going to vote because we are living a dog's life, without medicine, without food," said Teresa Paredes, a 56-year-old housewife.
But Rafael Manzanares, 53 and living on government handouts, said he believed Maduro's claim that "things are bad because of the economic war" against the country.
Aware of the popular mood, Maduro vowed an "economic revolution" if reelected.
'Further instability'
Presidential elections are traditionally held in December, but they were moved up this year by the country's all-powerful and pro-government Constituent Assembly, catching the divided and weakened opposition off-guard.
Maduro is accused of undermining democracy, usurping the power of the opposition-dominated legislature by replacing it with his Constituent Assembly and cracking down hard on the opposition. Protests in 2017, still fresh in the collective memory, left around 125 people dead.
