Last year, I spoke to my colleague Nick Paton Walsh about his reporting trip through the Darien Gap. This is the incredibly treacherous 66 mile journey between Colombia and Panama that connects North and South America. It cuts through the thickest jungle you can imagine, steeper than steep hills, bugs, snakes, danger at every turn. But every year, migrants, often trafficked by cartels, willingly make this journey to get one step closer to the U.S. southern border in search of a better life.

Boy, I picked up a cookie cutter.

Nick told me about a mother and daughter he met along the way who had come from Venezuela. The mother said she made just $16 a month back home. Her daughter lived in constant fear.

And your university? What happened there?

It's hard to live.It’s very dangerous it’s hard, live with violence. I studied with two people that are killed.

This is how bad life had gotten in Venezuela under strongman Nicolas Maduro. Well, earlier this week, there was a presidential election in Venezuela. And in the run up, Venezuelans were hopeful. They felt change was possible. Then came the vote.

That is the sound of banging pots echoing across Venezuela. There in Caracas, as people are protesting the results of the country's presidential election.

Maduro claimed victory and so did the opposition. But only one side is releasing data to back it up. My guest is CNN and Espa?ol anchor Alejandro Mora. We're going to talk about why calls on Maduro for transparency may fall on deaf ears, and how discontent in the streets of Caracas may end up on America's doorstep ahead of its election from CNN, this is One Thing I'm David Rind.

Alejandra, it's Monday afternoon. Where are you right now?

I'm actually in Caracas, Venezuela, where things are getting pretty heated and very tense right now.

Yeah. Can you describe the mood? You know, it's been, like, less than a day since we got the results of this election, but, like, what is the mood on the streets right now?

You know, we woke up with a deafening silence in the streets of Caracas, that regular, usual day to day movement. Venezuelans are known for waking up pretty early and working. Unfortunately, things were completely different and a lot of people describe them as a holiday. But that silence very soon turned into anger, turned into protest. Elections definitely sparked pots and pans protests not only in Caracas but in the rest of Venezuela. A lot of people are now out on the streets.

We need to be free! We need those people to leave! Out, Maduro! Out!

Asking for the results of the elections to have transparency, to be clear. And the reason why people are so angry, it's because there is not a clear transparency of the results of last night elections.

And I can say to the people of Venezuela and to the world. I am Nicolas Maduro Moro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela....

The CNE had decided that they announced today at 12:00 midnight. The Nicolas Maduro was the winner with 51.2%. Edmundo Gonzalez Roja, which was his opposition candidate, received 44.2% of the votes, which sparked a lot of problems here in Venezuela. Since before no previews polled actually had that number, no previous poll actually had Maduro winning at all. And this is a reason why people are on the streets of Caracas and in the rest of Venezuela, very angry because they don't understand why the results are like this.

Right? They just didn't see any of that data coming up to this point. And didn't the opposition also declare victory?

'They did with a 70% after the CNE - Concejo Nacional Electoral - spoke at midnight – they talked.

Mundo González Urrutia obtained 70 percent of the votes of this election....

The opposition leader called Maria Corina machado, which was actually the candidate of the opposition, but she was not allowed to run by the government, said that it Mundo Gonzalez Urrutia, which was a candidate that ended up running for the oppostion.

So she wasn't allowed to run, but they just had to put somebody else in her place.

They actually try to pick two candidates before Edmundo Gonzalez. The first one was Maria Corina machado, and the second one was called Corina. Neither Maria Corina machado nor Carina Johnny's were allowed to to run for president.

So now that what happened during today's polling day was a violation of all the rules. So the points that the majority of electoral registers have still not been handed over, our message of reconciliation and peaceful change still stands. We are convinced most Venezuelans also want this. Our struggle continues, and we won't rest until the will of the people of Venezuela is respected.

So what is the reaction been then like from the international community to these results as we know them today?

Number one, I think the United States and other countries around the world, specifically Latin America, they are asking for transparency. They're asking to audit votes.

We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people. It's critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently.

But I think notably, probably the most important comments that we have received from Latin America are leaders that used to be in line and supporting Nicolas Maduro or the Chubby's more throughout this 20 plus years. For example, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, who's the current president of Brazil and a longtime leader within the region's leftist movement, release. Let's call it a cautious statement that did not congratulate the president. And a lot of people are talking about this one, because you said that the Brazilian government welcomed the peaceful nature of yesterday's elections, but that in this context, he's awaiting the publications of the CNE, the National Electoral Council of Data, broken down by polling station to understand that the election was transparent and that this was an indispensable step for the transparency, for the credibility and the legitimacy of the election results.

But do we really think that we're going to get any of that transparency, like if the CNE doesn't release that data, like what happens next? Does the opposition have any recourse here?

You know what? I don't think I'm in the position to say that. I think that's really more in the international, observation to see. I well, that's really what the opposition is hoping for, that they're going to have a clear count, that they're going to have transparency with this election, that they're going to understand and answer the questions of many people, because it's not only the governments of Latin America or the US. A perfect example is that the UN on Carter Center, which is actually here, they traveled to Venezuela for the election, are requesting transparency. But the truth is, we have to wait to see what's going to happen with the counting itself. Meanwhile, we see that Venezuela is not happy. They're not taking those answer. They're not taking the results. And time will tell.

So can we step back here a bit? Because I think a lot of people in the US, they hear about the conditions in Venezuela and why people are generally upset, but like you're from there, right? So can you like paint the picture of why so many people are so upset with Maduro and his regime?

Well, I am from Venezuela, but I actually love Venezuela 24 years ago. I've been living in the US since I was 12 years old. So I'm coming back to Venezuela, not only as a Venezuelan citizen, but also as an American citizen. So I can give you my perspective as a Venezuelan journalist who's also an American citizen. And I understand the problem and the concern and the anger the Venezuelans have for the regime. And number one, it's that they have not been clear with results of many elections in the past. Number two, there's been a lot of problems of corruptions in the past, but most importantly, they do not have the easy. And the perfect example to use is the accessibility that a lot of people in the U.S. have. For me, working here as a journalist, I was trying to be inform of certain websites that they have here, newspapers, and I was not able to access them because they are blocked by, the internet providers. It's very tough to be informed in Venezuela. It's very tough to find food. It's very tough to to be able to save money and grow. And those things have happened throughout two decades. And people are fed up because they want to be prosperous. They want to grow here in Venezuela. And the perfect result and of how tough things have become in Venezuela, it's the almost 8 million immigrants that have left the country. It has become a problem for the US as well.

I want to be in my home, I want to be in my country.This is not fair, this is not fair. I wanted Venezuela to be free, this was my last hope. And they took it away from us, because it's Maduro, he's a dog.

One of the biggest concern that the international community had was that if Maduro did indeed win this election, like it happened last night, according to the CNE, a bigger migration could happen with Venezuela, and there's concern on other countries in Latin America that they would be able to answer and to respond to that migration, because it's currently becoming a problem. There's too many people that are getting to either the United States, like we know, in the south border between Mexico and the US, and a lot of people here in, in Latin America have had the same problems in previous years. They are called componentes, which are Venezuelan walkers that have literally walked probably two months or three months to places like Peru or Ecuador to become immigrants there.

So it's not just a Venezuela problem, it's not just a US immigration problem. It's all those countries in the region in between that see the impacts of the people leaving.

Absolutely is becoming an economic issue for those countries as well. Like the truth is that the Venezuelan migration has become a problem for Latin America. It has become a problem for Venezuela as well, because a lot of those people that have migrated have become have been professionals leaving young people. So what's left? Imagine if we have around, let's say, roughly 28 million Venezuelans, and we have 8 million abroad. That's bigger than the population of Panama. That's bigger than the population of Costa Rica. So that's a perfect example. We are a country. Out of our country. And imagine the impact that that could have brought.

And so I guess, finally, as you look at this moment of kind of uncertainty with a lot of people so upset. Is there any hope for the people that are still there to to forge a better path if the democracy option doesn't seem to be working out?

I think the reason that's the reason why they're on the streets, they're trying to forge that path. They're trying to make people listen. They're trying to show the world that they want change. And that's really the route of democracy, right? So I think that every Venezuelan, it's hopeful that they're going to have a better time later on, that they're going to have a better country. Unfortunately, with situations like happened yesterday where they don't have a clear answer with the result of the election might put a lot of people unease. But also we have to understand something. We live in a polarized country where it's very tough to find a common ground in the middle of this. Venezuela is not like the United States, where you have Republicans and Democrats and they're fighting just to be in power. This is a whole different situation that it's not compared like Cuba or like other countries, but it does have some tendencies like that. And that's why people are very cautious to be hopeful here. But they want to have a different life for sure.

It's like they see any kind of sliver of a way forward, and they want to hang onto that as long as possible.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thanks so much for the perspective, Alejandra. I really appreciate.

No. My pleasure.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni, Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Zahra Ullah, Jonathan Hawkins, Mariana Pi?ngo, Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Sunday with another episode. Head over to CNN.com or check out the CNN 5 Things podcast for the very latest on everything that's going on out there. I'll talk to you later.