Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro doesn’t like losing

There are sore losers and then there’s Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. The socialist president has ruled the South American country for 11 years, and despite opinion polls – and now physical vote tallies from the presidential election – proving that he’s not as popular as he wants to be, he seems to really want to stay in his job.

So much so, that there are reports Maduro’s regime may be plotting the arrest of the man who is not only beating him in the popularity contest, but appears to have thrashed him at the polls: Edmundo Gonzalez. A similar scheme is reportedly being hatched against Maria Corina Machado, the woman whom Gonzalez replaced on the ballot after she was banned from running.

The facade of democracy and justice that Maduro and his allies have been hiding behind is rather swiftly peeling away. The government-backed national electoral council claimed he won Sunday’s election with 51 per cent of the vote, seven points ahead of Gonzalez.