Maduro certified as election winner amid protests

Venezuela's government-friendly electoral council quickly certified the razor-thin presidential victory of Hugo Chavez' hand-picked successor Monday, apparently ignoring opposition demands for a recount as anti-government protests broke out in the bitterly polarized nation. 

People stood on balconies banging pots and pans in protest as the electoral council's president proclaimed Nicolas Maduro president for the next six years. In the evening, they did it again, a raucous clanging in neighborhoods rich and poor, including the one surrounding the presidential palace where Maduro was holding a news conference. 

In the afternoon, thousands of young people clashed with National Guard troops in riot gear who fired tear gas and plastic bullets to block the protesters back from marching on the city center. The demonstrators threw stones and pieces of concrete. Protests also were reported in provincial cities. 

Maduro was elected Sunday by a margin of 50.8 percent to 49 percent over challenger Henrique Capriles a difference of just 262,000 votes out of 14.9 million cast, according to an updated official count released Monday. 

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, citing myriad woes including food and medicine shortages, worsening power outages and rampant crime. 

Until every vote is counted, Venezuela has an "illegitimate president and we denounce that to the world," Capriles tweeted Monday.Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices. 

One of the five members of the National Electoral Council, independent Vicente Diaz, also backed a full recount, as did the United States and the Organization of American States.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. 

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 bullet-proof. 

Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, had demanded the proclamation be suspended.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. He convoked the pot-banging protest and asked supporters to gather outside the electoral council Tuesday 

Capriles claimed that members of the military, "an important group in various cities," had been detained for trying to guarant In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said a "100 percent audit" of the results would be "an important, prudent and necessary step to ensure that all Venezuelans have confidence in these results." 

The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, also called for a "full recount." 

Under Venezuela's voting system, 54 percent of the tallies printed out by individual voting machines are routinely audited and that was done Sunday night, Lucena said. ee a free and fair election.When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. He said they had been ordered to ignore abuses they witnessed. Capriles did not offer further details, such as how many were involved. 

He said a vote count by his campaign produced "a different result" and it received more than 3,200 complaints of irregularities all by pro-government forces.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. He demanded every single ballot be recounted. 

A total of 39,319 boxes of paper ballot receipts were emitted by Venezuela's electronic voting system Sunday. They are now stored in warehouses under the control of the military. Those receipts would need to be checked against vote count printouts emitted by each individual voting machine. Those results would then be checked with the electoral council's central tally. 

The electronic voting system itself was never questioned by the opposition and it has drawn praise from institutions such as the Carter Center as among the most reliable.

Analysts called the election result, which followed an often ugly campaign full of mudslinging, a disaster for Maduro, a former union leader and bus driver believed to have close ties to Cuba. 

A lackluster public speaker whose standard rhetoric features attacks on "the extreme right" that he says is constantly conspiring against him, Maduro must now endeavor to hold together a movement built around the magnetism of the now-departed Chavez. 

A hint of internal trouble to come came in a tweet by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, who many consider Maduro's main rival within their movement. 

Few outside Venezuela had bigger stakes in the race than Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country receives generous subsidized oil exports from Venezuela in exchange for sending doctors, military advisories and other help to Venezuela. 

Capriles had promised to end that exchange, as well as end close ties with other countries with questionable human rights and democracy records including Belarus and Iran.