Nicolas Maduro wins Venezuela presidential election

 Socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro has won a narrow victory in Venezuela's presidential poll.

 

Mr Maduro, who was chosen by the late Hugo Chavez, won 50.7% of the vote against 49.1% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles

 

The electoral commission said the results were "irreversible".
There has been no comment from Mr Capriles, who earlier on Sunday has suggested there was an attempt to doctor the result.
Mr Maduro told a rally of supporters in the capital Caracas that he had won a "just, legal and constitutional" victory.
However, the margin of victory was far smaller than that gained by the late President Chavez over Mr Capriles at elections last October.
Mr Maduro said he was willing to allow an audit of the election result.
Almost 80% of eligible voters took part in the poll.
Mr Maduro had been serving as acting president since Mr Chavez died of cancer on 5 March.
He is due to be sworn in on 19 April and serve until January 2019 to complete the six-year term that Mr Chavez would have begun in January

 

Venezuela: Hunger strikers say government thugs attacked them

Protesters say bikers dressed in Chavez's socialist party colors robbed them and fired guns at them. The government blames Washington.

CARACAS, Venezuela — About 40 hunger strikers camped out in Venezuela's capital city of Caracas came under attack Monday night by what they described as a large group of armed, pro-government activists, leaving at least half a dozen injured after shots were fired.
Demanding clean April 14 presidential elections, the hunger strikers this weekend set up mattresses on a roundabout in a wealthy Caracas district, many of them without eating now for three days.


But some 50 motorbikes descended on their camp, their riders clad in the crimson of late President Hugo Chavez's socialist party followers, protesters told GlobalPost.
The police and socialist party officials did not respond to GlobalPost's requests for comment.
But witnesses and images posted to the internet told of a violent attack, signaling tensions are high during the bitter but brief campaigns to succeed Chavez.
"They were using bikes belonging to the government," said Henry Linares, an 18-year-old student who was taking part in the hunger strike. "They robbed us of our stuff. We have around 10 students injured but we're continuing the fight."
Linares' friend and fellow protester Esteban Galup added: "There were around 50 motorcyclists. They surrounded us."
The protesters said they took refuge at a nearby McDonald's as police and medical assistance arrived.
The students accuse the country's electoral council of a pro-government bias and are calling for a fair election this Sunday, as acting President Nicolas Maduro runs against opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
In Venezuela, after 14 years of Chavez's rule, pro-government still means pro-“Chavismo” — a philosophy that has relied on the country's oil wealth to reduce poverty through a bevy of welfare programs while, opponents say, also muzzling dissent and wrecking the economy. International watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch accused Chavez of stacking the electoral council and the courts with supporters and intimidating or arresting judges suspected of straying from the government line.
Sunday's election and the short campaign preceding it come in the wake of Chavez's death from cancer on March 5.
Unlike in the United States, Venezuelan law calls for a new election after a president dies rather than filling the top executive post with the vice president.
In December, before leaving for an emergency cancer surgery in Cuba, Chavez anointed his faithful deputy Maduro as his preferred heir. That's likely to win Maduro the presidency, according to pollsters.
"We're here demanding that the elections are clean, just and free," said 22-year-old Vanessa Eisig, lying on a mattress alongside other hunger strikers over the weekend. "That's why we're having this hunger strike."
Twitter users posted dramatic messages and pictures of the attack. "We need help," wrote one organizer, Gaby Arellano. "The situation is severe." Her message was accompanied by an image of a protester with blood pouring from a wound on his head.