Protests as Maduro declared winner
Chavez’s choice to lead victorious in Venezuela vote
CARACAS Venezuela’s government-friendly electoral council quickly certified the razor-thin presidential victory of Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor Monday, apparently ignoring opposition demands for a recount as antigovernment protests broke out in the bitterly polarized nation.
People stood on their balconies in Caracas apartment buildings banging pots and pans in protest as the electoral council’s president proclaimed Nicolas Maduro president for the next six years.
Across town, thousands of students clashed with National Guard troops in riot gear who fired tear gas and plastic bullets to turn the protesters back from marching on the city centre. Students threw stones and pieces of concrete.
The city was otherwise peaceful, although protests were reported in provincial cities. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Maduro was elected Sunday by a margin of 50.7 per cent to 49.1 per cent over challenger Henrique Capriles — a difference of just 235,000 votes out of 14.8 million cast, according to the official count.
Sworn in as acting president after Chavez’s March 5 death from cancer, Maduro squandered a double-digit advantage in opinion polls in two weeks as Capriles highlighted what he called the ruling Chavistas’ abysmal management of the oil-rich country’s economy and infrastructure. He pointed to food and medicine shortages, chronic power outages and rampant crime.
By contrast, Chavez had defeated Capriles by a nearly 11-point margin in October.
Until every vote is counted, Venezuela has an “illegitimate president and we denounce that to the world,” Capriles tweeted Monday.
One of the five members of the National Electoral Council, independent Vicente Diaz, also backed a full recount, as did the U.S. and the Organization of American States.
But the electoral council president, Tibisay Lucena, said in announcing the outcome Sunday that it was “irreversible.” At the proclamation ceremony Monday, she called Venezuela “a champion of democracy” and defended its electronic vote system as bulletproof.
Capriles said a vote count by his campaign produced “a different result” and it received more than 3,200 complaints of irregularities. He demanded every single ballot be recounted.