President Nicolás Maduro has won Venezuela's presidential election, according to partial results announced by the electoral council.
The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso - who is a close ally of Mr Maduro - said that with 80% of ballots counted, President Maduro had 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for his main rival.
The Venezuelan opposition dismissed the CNE's announcement as fraudulent and promised to challenge the result.
It said its candidate, Edmundo González, had won with 70% of the votes and insisted he was the rightful president-elect.
The result of the election will have repercussions well beyond the South American country of 29.4 million inhabitants.
Over the past 10 years, 7.8 million people have fled Venezuela because of the economic and political crisis into which the country was plunged under the Maduro Administration.
Polls conducted in the run-up to the election suggest that exodus could now increase, with one poll suggesting a third of the population would emigrate.
With immigration a hot topic in the US election, the government in Washington, as well as Latin American nations to which Venezuelans have emigrated en masse, are affected by what happens in the Andean country.
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