Maduro to cancel opposition protests

Caracas: Venezuelan President-elect Nicolas Maduro said he will block a march planned by the opposition contesting his April 14 election after the public prosecutor said seven people were killed in protests.

Mr Maduro, who was proclaimed the winner by the electoral council yesterday, said he will come down with a "hard hand" to prevent violence. Henrique Capriles Radonski, who lost by 1.8 percentage points, urged supporters to take to the streets with him tomorrow to press the electoral council in Caracas to manually recount all ballots.

"You won't go to downtown Caracas to fill it with blood and death," Mr Maduro, 50, said in comments broadcast on state television. "This is a chronicle of a coup foretold."

The closest margin of victory in 45 years may lead to an environment of distrust and institutional collapse, said Javier Ciurlizza, director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. Dollar bonds tumbled for a second day as traders anticipated instability after 14 years of late president Hugo Chavez's rule.

Mr Maduro, who had 50.8 percent of the votes, said Tuesday that the electoral council has carried out a 54 percent audit of the election results and found no evidence of irregularity. Mr Capriles saidhe believed he had won the election and is ready to concede defeat after a recount.

61 Injured

Protests across the country have also left 61 injured and led to the arrest of 135 people, Public Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz said. Opposition protesters have attacked health centres and local offices of the ruling socialist party, Mr Maduro said.

Mr Capriles, who had 49 percent support, said he had evidence of irregularities, including videos of voters being watched by Mr Maduro supporters while they cast their ballots, that affected about 300,000 votes.

"I'm not asking for them to proclaim Capriles as the winner," the 40-year-old opposition leader told reporters in Caracas. "I'm asking that they count each vote. If as a candidate you agreed to a vote-by-vote recount you don't go running to be proclaimed."

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello said no recount of the 15 million votes cast would occur and that Mr Maduro will be sworn in April 19. The government will call for Mr Capriles to be investigated by the National Assembly for the violence generated in the country, Mr Cabello said today on his Twitter account.

'Polarised the country'

"The government's rejection of a reasonable request to recount the vote has polarised the country even further, driving people into the streets," Mr Ciurlizza said. "If opposition supporters lose faith in formal politics, the outbreaks of violence will become unpredictable."

"You won't go to downtown Caracas to fill it with blood and death," Mr Maduro said.

Hundreds of Capriles supporters marched through eastern Caracas Tuesday to gather outside his campaign headquarters, waving flags and blowing horns. Elsewhere on a motorway in the capital, National Guard troops fired tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protesting students.

As Mr Maduro gave a press conference Tuesday in which he accused his opponents of seeking to incite violence, the opposition in Caracas staged a protest across the city by banging pots and pans for about 40 minutes.

The margin of victory was the narrowest since

a 1968 general election in which Rafael Caldera defeated Gonzalo Barrios by 29.1 percent against 28.2 percent.

The former union leader and foreign minister has vowed to follow the steps of his mentor Chavez, who increased state control over the economy by nationalising more than 1000 companies or their assets and introduced currency and price controls. Chavez also tapped the world's biggest oil reserves to help cut poverty to 21.2 percent of the population in the second half of 2012 from 42.8 percent when he first took power in 1999, according to government data.

Chavez's Son

Chavez won his third six-year term last October when he defeated Mr Capriles by 11 percentage points after raising salaries, building thousands of homes for poor families and increasing cheap imports to slow inflation. The spending binge helped the economy grow 5.5 percent in 2012.

"I am the son of Chavez," Maduro said yesterday. "I am the first Chavista president after Hugo Chavez and I am going to fulfil in full his legacy to protect the humble, the poor, the fatherland."

Mr Maduro called the election a choice between capitalism and socialism. He warned Spain and Madrid-based energy company Repsol SA to "be careful" about their relationship with Venezuela, saying they could face "exemplary actions" from his government. Repsol has stakes in Venezuela's Carabobo 1 heavy oil project and Perla natural gas field.

As Chavez languished in a hospital bed in Cuba before his death, Maduro oversaw a 32 percent devaluation of the bolivar and expelled two US embassy officials who were accused of plotting against the government. The US denied the charges.

Bloomberg