Colombian President Gustavo Petro called on his ally Mr Maduro to release detailed vote counts of the weekend election. Posting on the X social media site he said: “The serious doubts that have arisen around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep, violent polarisation.

“I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count, with the counting of votes, and with the supervision of all the political forces of its country and professional international supervision.”

Anti-government activists have attacked some of those election monitors, started fires and vandalised statues of the country’s iconic former leader Hugo Chavez. Mr Maduro said on Tuesday that he had allocated $10 million (£8 million) to support the victims of what he described as “fascist commandos.”

The president said he had also “ordered the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and the police to develop a plan for patrolling and detaining these violent commando groups.”President Maduro accused opposition members Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, the defeated right-wing candidate in the presidential election, of being behind the unrest.

He said that the US-backed opposition intended to seize power by use of violence. So far they have burnt “the headquarters of the National Electoral Council (CNE), burning machines and attacking electoral officials.”But many of the more than 100 social and political organisations from 95 countries, in Venezuela to monitor the elections, have hailed the conduct of the poll.

Among them was Suzanne Adely, the president of the US-based National Lawyers Guild (NLG). She said that the elections “were not only fair and transparent but also represented an example of popular civic participation.”

The NLG said: “Despite the soundness of the electoral process, the US-backed opposition, with support from an anti-Maduro western press, has refused to accept the results, undermining the stability of Venezuela’s democracy.”

Ajamu Baraka from the Black Alliance for Peace, who was also in Venezuela as an observer, posted on the X social media platform that he could “say with certainty that after systematic interference by anti-democratic forces in the US the election results represented the sentiments of the people who voted.” (Morning Star — IPA Service)