Maduro sworn in as Venezuela president

Latin American leaders attend ceremony as election council agrees to expand audit of results in disputed vote.

Nicolas Maduro has been sworn in as Venezuela’s president at a ceremony attended by several Latin American leaders, after a decision to widen an electronic audit of the vote took some of the heat out of a dispute over his election.

Heads of state who attended Maduro’s swearing-in on Friday included Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with leaders such as Bolivia, Uruguay and Nicaragua.

The ceremony was briefly interrupted after a spectator rushed the stage, while Maduro was giving his inaugural speech.

The man in a red, long-sleeved jacket ran toward Maduro and grabbed the microphone, pushing him aside.

“Nicolas, my name is Jenry,” the man said, before security guards converged from all sides.

The broadcast on state television cut away, then returned within minutes to the lectern.

“The security has failed totally. They could have shot me easily,” Maduro said after resuming his speech.

Maduro, a former bus driver-turned-foreign minister who became the late Hugo Chavez’s chosen successor, narrowly beat opposition challenger Henrique Capriles in Sunday’s vote.

He accused Capriles of triggering post-election violence that killed eight people, though the opposition says Maduro allies staged some incidents to distract from the vote dispute.

“We have stopped a coup in its first stage. They are beaten, but they are coming back with a new attack,” Maduro said on Thursday before flying to Peru for a last-minute meeting of South American leaders to discuss the situation.

While he was in Lima, Venezuela’s electoral authority said it would widen to 100 percent an audit of electronic votes from a previous audit that reviewed 54 percent.

“We do this in order to preserve a climate of harmony … and isolate violent sectors that are seeking to injure democracy,” Tibisay Lucena, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), said in a televised speech to the nation.

Maduro, 50, received a show of support at the late-night meeting of a group of South American nations called Unasur, which welcomed the CNE’s move, congratulated him on his victory, and called on both sides to reject violence.

Capriles, who insists the opposition’s figures show he won, said he accepted the CNE’s decision although it fell short of the manual recount he had wanted. He said he was sure the truth would come out.

The date for the start of the wider audit is to be announced by next week.

Military parade

The inauguration ceremony was held at the National Assembly and will be followed by a military parade.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said on Twitter that on Saturday morning she planned to visit the military museum in Caracas where her friend Chavez is buried.

“I want to be there a bit more alone, without so many people, without so much noise,” she said. “To Caracas, without Hugo. It’s going to be difficult and strange at the same time. His funerals were so impressive it was like I was in a daze.”

The unrest in Venezuela, just weeks after Chavez’s death from cancer, has exposed the deep polarisation of a country split down the middle between pro- and anti-government factions.

Maduro’s administration accuses Capriles supporters of going on the rampage, shooting people, attacking offices belonging to the ruling Socialist Party, and setting fire to government-run clinics staffed by Cuban doctors.

Capriles, who has repeatedly called on his supporters to behave peacefully, said the government was to blame for any violence because of its refusal to hold a recount.

“We have identified where the problems are. With this, we’re where we want to be,” he said of the vote audit.

He also demanded the government stop “persecuting” his supporters, and said there was no evidence of attacks on the state-run clinic, known as CDIs.

“I asked for reports from all the country’s municipalities about incidents at CDIs,” he said on Twitter.

“None were affected. Only sick minds would do something like this!”.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies