Police use tear gas on Caracas protests

Venezuelan police deployed tear gas on Monday in Caracas to disperse protesters challenging Sunday’s presidential election result, according to AFP. Demonstrators, defying the authoritarian government accused of human rights abuses, rallied against the election outcome that gave President Nicolas Maduro a narrow victory. Forty-one-year-old protester Fernando Mejia expressed exhaustion with Maduro’s presidency, stating, ‘we want freedom for our children.’ Opposition claims widespread fraud, alleging opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia actually received 70% of the vote. Many South American leaders and the USA have echoed distrust in the election result, prompting Maduro to recall envoys from several Latin American countries rejecting external interference from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. These nations have called for an examination of the election process. Maduro has been president since 2013, witnessing a decline in Venezuela’s GDP to a fifth of its size and over seven million people emigrating.