Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles has refused to accept ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro’s narrow election victory and demanded a recount.
“Today’s loser is you,” he told a news conference on Monday, referring to Maduro, adding: “We won’t recognise a result until every vote has been counted”.
The National Electoral Council said late on Sunday that Maduro won 50.66 percent of the vote compared to 49.07 percent for Capriles – a difference of less than 300,000 ballots – allowing him to carry forward the policies of the late Hugo Chavez.
Venezuela uses electronic voting machines that print a paper ballot as a backup for any recounts.
“There should be no doubts about the election results. The institutions are functioning. If 7,500,000 Venezuelans said that Nicolas Maduro should be the president of the republic until 2019, this must be respected; the democracy and the power of the majority,” Maduro said, addressing a crowd from the Miraflores presidential palace.
But, he said he would welcome an audit.
“We are calling for respect of the results. If they want do an audit they are welcome to do it. They can do whatever audit they want to do. We trust in the Venezuelan electoral system. We welcome an audit,” said Maduro.
After a brief and bitter campaign, Venezuelans had waited anxiously for results into Sunday night with counting reportedly too close to call and both sides expressing confidence of victory .
Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from Caracas, said: “We’re hearing that Maduro is going to try and take the presidency today, Monday, and be inaugurated.
“We’ll see how that plays out because I’m sure the opposition is going to try and step in and say perhaps that they want a full audit before that happens. There is a long way for this to go still, the coming days are going to be key.”
