https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...m-vote-turnout
Madero vote to claim Guyana’s territory backfires as Venezuelans stay home
The government of Guyana has breathed a sigh of relief after a referendum intended to rubber-stamp Venezuela’s claim to about two-thirds of the tiny South American country’s territory appeared to have backfired.
Nicolás Maduro had hoped to
leverage his country’s century-long claim to the disputed Essequibo region to mobilise public support but voting stations across the country were largely quiet on Sunday as most voters shunned the issue.….
Venezuela’s government has said that more than 10.5 million people voted in the referendum – which would be a higher number than voted to re-elect Maduro’s more popular predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in 2012. Venezuela’s electoral authority said it had extended the voting window on Sunday evening due to “massive participation”.
The government figures have been widely scrutinised, however, given that analysts say they do not correspond with the
scenes at voting stations. “They haven’t admitted it explicitly but it’s obvious [they rigged the results],” Gunson said.
An image purported to have been shared and later deleted by Venezuela’s electoral authority showed a table with about 2 million votes for each of the five questions, suggesting that they tallied the number of votes rather than voters to spin the public relations disaster.
The Venezuelan government has not published any detailed or regional results, adding to doubts around their validity. “If the government stands by their claim that this is a massive success they should have no difficulty in publishing the breakdown of votes,” said Geoff Ramsey, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“This is a massive
PR disaster for Maduro. They’ve been firing the propaganda machine on all cylinders for months but despite their best efforts turnout is way below what we expected,” he added.
Intelligence collected by Guyana and its allies suggest the actual turnout was fewer than 1.5 million people – less than a 10th of the population – said a source close to the Guyanese government who described the move as “rigonomics”.
“I think Maduro miscalculated in a very, very big way,” the source added….