by Phoenix on 15 April 2013 14:17

In amongst the arguments over Venezuelan president-elect Nicolas Maduro's electoral victory this weekend comes some photographic evidence that may prove thoroughly disconcerting to democracy and anti-corruption campaigners.

The results of the vote are highly disputed, with sources telling me that this election was almost certainly "stolen" from the opposition and Venezuelan people.

The Venezuelan National Electoral Council, known to be stuffed full of Chavistas, has formally ruled in favour of the dead president's Bolivarian-socialist successor, Nicolas Maduro. But new claims are emerging that for a start, foreign votes have not yet been added to the count, which Maduro only won by around 300,000 votes. There are 1.5 million Venezuelans abroad, though this does not reflect the number that are of voting age and indeed registered to vote.

In addition, there were a reported 350,000 "null votes", made up of spoiled or blank ballot papers. One source told me, "in this case, if the picture of your candidate didn't appear due to loading problems, and you hit 'vote', your 'receipt' would come out blank".

Pictures from Barinas, the state in which the late Hugo Chavez was born, appear to show ballots being thrown away, rather than counted and added to the totals. The governor of Barinas is none other than Adán Chavez, the former president's brother.

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