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Chavez heir wins, but faces a crisis

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Venezuela was thrown into fresh political turmoil on Monday after the anointed heir to Hugo Chavez scraped a narrow victory in the country's presidential election - prompting the opposition to demand a recount.

Nicolas Maduro, 50, a former bus driver and union activist, beat the fresh-faced opposition leader Henrique Capriles by just 1.5 per cent, or 235,000 votes, despite widespread expectations of a comfortable win.

Election analysts suggested that the eventual margin of victory could even narrow to less than one per cent once the votes of overwhelmingly pro-opposition expatriate Venezuelans were counted.

Capriles, who had campaigned vigorously against the legacy of Chavez's 14-year "socialist" revolution, refused to recognise the result and demanded an immediate recount. He claimed that thousands of "incidents" of electoral malpractice needed to be examined.

The National Electoral Council insisted yesterday that the result was "irreversible". Even if it does stand, it leaves Venezuela facing mounting economic problems - rampant inflation and food shortages - with a president who now holds only a wafer-thin mandate.

"This was a terrible result for the new president," Professor Antonio Cova, a leading Venezuelan political analyst told The Daily Telegraph. "It leaves him sitting on top of a volcano: the economy is in ruins, the country is divided and he is totally unprepared for the job."

Maduro had campaigned almost solely on a promise to maintain the legacy of Chavez who had trounced Capriles last October, winning by 11 per cent, or two million votes, in what was his last great outing on the political stage before succumbing to cancer last month.

However, Maduro's lead in the polls gradually withered and he ultimately received only 50.7 per cent of the votes on Sunday to 49.1 per cent for Capriles.

"The loser is you [Maduro]," Capriles said as Venezuela woke to confusion but relative calm after both sides told their supporters to go home and not cause trouble. "We won't recognize the result until every vote has been counted."

Capriles, 40, the governor of Miranda state, brandished a folder which he said contained 3,000 instances of electoral malpractice and hammered home the uncomfortable truth for Maduro by saying: "The people don't love you. I didn't fight against a candidate today, but against the whole abuse of power. This system is collapsing, it's like a castle of sand - touch it and it falls."

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said that, "given the tightness of the result", an audit of the election would be an "important, prudent and necessary step".

Maduro, speaking as his "victory" fireworks crackled in the skies above Caracas, insisted that his election was "fair, legal, constitutional" and he had no fear of a recount. "Let 100 per cent of the ballot boxes be opened. We're going to do it; we have no fear," he told supporters.

Analysts predicted that after such a disappointing showing at the polls, Maduro would face opposition both from Capriles's supporters, but also from within the "Chavismo" movement, where he does not have the backing of any key tribe or faction.

"The unpredictable narrow margin of the election results has proven how volatile the political scenario is," said Diego Moya-Ocampos, another respected Venezuelan political analyst.

"The death of Chavez was a game-changer that is leading to the gradual reorganisation of political power in Venezuela, in which the armed forces will play a key role behind the scenes."

The first signs of potential trouble emerged almost immediately when Diosdado Cabello, the powerful head of the National Assembly often seen as a potential rival to Maduro, took to Twitter after the result and - instead of backing the new president - warned the "results require deep self-criticism".
 

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