The news hit like a bomb outside Venezuela’s embassy in Buenos Aires.

Thousands of enthusiastic supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and candidate Edmundo González Urrutia flocked in from as early as 3:00 p.m. to await the election results and stayed well into the night. They had Venezuelan flags tied around their necks and balloons with the colors of the flag. They sang “The government will fall.” Jorge López, 40, was carrying a cardboard coffin that read “RIP Chavismo.”

As the results were announced around 1:00 a.m., people started to cry. Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s sitting president, claimed victory with 51.2% of the vote. “Well, this was already known,” said Andrés Ponce, 33, who came to Argentina in 2018.

Maduro has presided over a precipitous economic and humanitarian crisis, compounded by U.S. sanctions, that has forced millions of Venezuelans to leave the country. The government has been repeatedly accused of grave human rights violations including torture and extrajudicial killings. International leaders responded with skepticism........

© Buenos Aires Herald