Nicolás Maduro asked for “respect for the popular will”

Nicolás Maduro called on Sunday for “respect for the popular will” after being proclaimed re-elected by the National Electoral Council (CNE), following an election in which he competed against nine contenders, including the standard-bearer of the majority opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia.

“That is what I portray as president, respect for the Constitution, for the public powers and for the sovereign life of Venezuela, respect for the popular will (…) I will defend our law and our desire,” the president stressed, according to EFE.

He later promised that he would give “his entire life to carry out all the changes that this country needs,” which experienced an intense economic crisis between 2014 and 2021, from which it has begun to recover slightly.

Maduro said that he will work during his third term “to restore all rights violated by the economic war,” referring to the economic sanctions imposed by many countries in recent years, especially by the United States.

He considered his re-election “the triumph of peace, of stability, of the republican ideal, of the ideas of equality.”