Venezuela’s acting President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of the election to succeed his late mentor Hugo Chavez by a razor-thin margin, but his rival refused to concede defeat.
Maduro’s stunningly close victory over Henrique Capriles came after a campaign in which the winner promised to carry on Chavez’s self-proclaimed socialist revolution while the challenger’s main message was that Chavez’s 14-year regime put Venezuela on the road to ruin. Maduro, acting president since Chavez’s death, held a double-digit advantage in opinion polls just two weeks ago, but electoral officials said he got just 50.7% of the votes to 49.1% for Capriles with nearly all ballots counted.
The contested result plunged the deeply divided oil-rich South American country into uncertainty, with the handpicked heir of Chavez’s socialist revolution declaring victory and opposition leader Henrique Capriles demanding a recount. Fireworks erupted after the National Electoral Council announced that the ‘irreversible’ results showed Maduro had won with just 50.66 per cent of the vote compared to 49.1 per cent for Capriles – a difference of less than 300,000 votes. ‘Mission accomplished Comandante Chavez. The people fulfilled its pledge,’ Maduro said in front of cheering supporters at the Miraflores presidential palace. The 50-year-old former foreign minister declared that he secured a ‘fair, legal, constitutional’ victory.
Maduro’s stunningly close victory over Henrique Capriles came after a campaign in which the winner promised to carry on Chavez’s self-proclaimed socialist revolution while the challenger’s main message was that Chavez’s 14-year regime put Venezuela on the road to ruin. Maduro, acting president since Chavez’s death, held a double-digit advantage in opinion polls just two weeks ago, but electoral officials said he got just 50.7% of the votes to 49.1% for Capriles with nearly all ballots counted.
The contested result plunged the deeply divided oil-rich South American country into uncertainty, with the handpicked heir of Chavez’s socialist revolution declaring victory and opposition leader Henrique Capriles demanding a recount. Fireworks erupted after the National Electoral Council announced that the ‘irreversible’ results showed Maduro had won with just 50.66 per cent of the vote compared to 49.1 per cent for Capriles – a difference of less than 300,000 votes. ‘Mission accomplished Comandante Chavez. The people fulfilled its pledge,’ Maduro said in front of cheering supporters at the Miraflores presidential palace. The 50-year-old former foreign minister declared that he secured a ‘fair, legal, constitutional’ victory.