Venezuela's Maduro wins re-election with 51.2% of vote: electoral council

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has won re-election to a third six-year term with 51.2 percent of votes cast, the electoral council has announced.

Elvis Amoroso, president of the CNE electoral body loyal to the government, told reporters 44.2 percent of the vote had gone to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia who had been leading in polls.

Reacting to the electoral council's announcement, Venezuela's opposition coalition rejected the election victory claimed by President Maduro, saying it had garnered 70 percent of the vote, not 44 percent as reported by the authority.

"We want to say to all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is (candidate) Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told journalists, adding: "We won."

This is a developing story.