Maduro vows to quash election protests despite international outcry

Thousands of anti-government protesters returned to Venezuela's streets yesterday to decry Nicolás Maduro's alleged attempt to steal Sunday's election, as he vowed to squash what he called "a violent counter-revolution" and more than 700 arrests were made.

- Tom Phillips and Patricia Torres Caracas Sam Jones Madrid

Maduro's disputed claim to have won the vote has plunged the South American country into another chapter of unrest and uncertainty.

"I am worried. I am leaving here worried," Celso Amorim, the envoy of Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told the Guardian as he prepared to fly out of Caracas after meeting Maduro the previous day.

On Monday, thousands of residents of poor communities marched through Venezuela's capital in a striking demonstration of the widespread anger sparked by Maduro's claim to have beaten his rival, the ex-diplomat Edmundo González.

Maduro has said he won the election with more than 5.1m votes to his rival's 4.4m. But the opposition insists it won a landslide with 6.2m votes to Maduro's 2.7m.

Yesterday the demonstrators were back after González and his key backer, the opposition leader María Corina Machado, called on followers to continue their protests.

"It's obvious that we won ... We crushed them -70% of the country is against the government," claimed one of those to answer their call, a 35-year-old administrator called Ana Maria González.