MOSCOW, May 21. /TASS/. Russia consider the vote at Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday as valid, a high ranking official at the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

"We have first information based on official data from Venezuela’s National Electoral Council. The vote is valid. The election results are irreversible as two thirds of votes were cast in favor of the country’s incumbent president, Nicolas Maduro," said Alexander Shchetinin, director of the ministry’s Latin America department.

"We think it is an important stage in the life of Venezuelan society, which creates necessary conditions for further efforts to solve the difficult tasks facing this country, first of all, in the area of socio-economic development," he said.

He noted with regret however that foreign government had sought to meddle with the Venezuelan elections. "Regrettably, we have to state that along with two traditional parties - the Venezuelan nation, voters and candidates with their programs - there was a third party to these elections, i.e. those government that openly called for boycotting the polls," he said.

"We often hear accusation of Russia’s meddling with elections in third countries," Shchetinin noted. "But a number of government, including of the United States, a priori said they would not recognize the results of the voting and sought to put obstacles for organizing voting among the Venezuelan diaspora on their territories."

The Russian diplomat stressed that the current task for the international community was to "help the Venezuelan people, various political forces sit down at a negotiating table, resume the domestic dialogue to resolve the problems of the country’s development."

Presidential election in Venezuela

Venezuelans went to polling stations on Sunday to elect the president for a six-year term.

Incumbent President Nicolas Maduro scored more than 5.8 million votes while his closes rival, Henri Falcon of the Progressive Advance opposition party, managed to win 1.8 million votes. More than 20.5 million voters were invited to take part in the polls. The voter turnout was about 46%

Even before the voting results were made public, Falcon had said he would not recognize them and had accused the authorities of buying votes.

Earlier in May, the United States, a number of Latin American countries and Spain said they would not recognize the results of the electoral process in Venezuela.