Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez reelected until 2019

With 90% of the tally sheets counted, National Electoral Council (CNE) president Tibisay Lucena announced late on Sunday the victory of President Hugo Chávez, who was reelected with 7,444,082 votes (54.42%), while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles won 6,151,544 votes (44.97%).

Upon the participation of as many as 80.94% of the electorate, Chávez has pulled off a historical victory that will allow him to stay in office until 2019.

Early in the afternoon, Chávez said in a telephone call to his campaign team press office that the presidential election held on Sunday "had been memorable, historical, and with a high turnout."

As for the rest of the candidates, Reina Sequera obtained 64,281 (0.46%) votes; Luis Alfonso Reyes 7,372 (0.05%); María Bolívar 6,969 (0.05%) and Orlando Chirinos 3,706 (0.02%).

The CNE president explained that the first report comprised 35,122 tally sheets, which total 13,677,934 votes, 263,954 out of which were null.

Translated by Jhean Cabrera