Venezuela’s ruling party wins majority in election

CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s Socialist Party won the majority of seats in the parliamentary election, authorities said Monday.

With most votes counted, the Socialist Party won some 90 of the 165 seats, Xinhua quoted National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena as saying.

However, the opposition claimed it had won a majority by getting 52 percent of the country’s popular vote.

About 17.5 million Venezuelans voted Sunday to choose 165 deputies to the National Assembly and 12 representatives to the Latin American parliament.

Chavez said that with these elections Venezuela would show the world it was a democratic country, underlining transparency, reliability and security of the electoral process.