VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro has slammed an attempted coup by his country’s US-backed far right after he won re-election on Sunday.

Mr Maduro hit out at the right-wing opposition, which is refusing to recognise the result despite thousands of independent monitors certifying the poll as free and fair.

The refusal of the opposition to accept Mr Maduro’s victory has fuelled violence, with election observers also coming under attack.

Among them is the Morning Star’s Calvin Tucker, who said: “One of our Venezuelan international electoral observer team buses on the way to the airport has just come under attack from far-right US-backed terrorists. 

“The bus managed to turn back and hopefully will make its way back to the hotel where we are staying.”

President Maduro said on Monday: “We have witnessed a series of events, more than 100 violent, terrorist attacks.”

Mr Maduro blamed the unrest on interference by the United States, saying: “The gringos are behind this plan. They have always been there.”

None of Mr Maduro’s previous election wins, in 2013 or 2018, have been recognised by the US or its satellites.

In a statement, he told Venezuelans that Washington had been “using the electoral process to harm you. They live off permanent damage.”

National Assembly Speaker Jorge Rodriguez called on the people to stage “a great march to Miraflores, to defend peace. We are the majority and that is why we are going to the streets to defend peace.”

Speaking on Monday afternoon, Mr Rodriguez said the right-wing plan was a replica of Juan Guaido’s strategy, which he called “Plan Guaido 2.0.”

Mr Guaido was controversially declared president in 2019 by then US president Donald Trump, despite never having been elected to the post.

Mr Rodriguez hailed Mr Maduro’s victory as overwhelming, adding that it had “definitively buried the fascism that has been enthroned in a sector of Venezuelan politics.

“This is the corollary of the consequences of the years of struggle of the Venezuelan people against sanctions, against the blockade, against violence, against calls for death, burning people alive, because of their skin colour,” he said.

Mr Rodriguez also said that the election been peaceful because the government and the people had overcome all attempts at violence beforehand.

“We managed to stop all attempts at terrorist attacks on the electrical system. Because we managed to save the life of our candidate. We had to sit down every day to make plans to prevent our candidate from being attacked in an atrocious manner,” he said.