CARACAS (Reuters) – Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s president on Friday at a ceremony attended by leaders from Iran to Brazil after a decision to widen an electronic audit of the vote took some of the heat out of a dispute over his election.

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

Capriles refused to accept the result, alleged widespread irregularities, demanded a full recount and called his supporters onto the streets in protest.

The government says eight people were killed in post-election violence and Maduro blamed the deaths on Capriles, although the opposition says Maduro allies staged some incidents to distract attention from the dispute over balloting.

Maduro took the oath of office alongside a large framed photo of the socialist Chavez, who led Venezuela for 14 years before losing a battle against cancer last month.

“I swear, on the eternal legacy of our founding fathers … on the eternal memory of our supreme commander, that I will uphold this constitution,” Maduro said.

In his first speech as president, which coincided with Venezuela’s celebration of its declaration of independence, Maduro offered a sentimental tribute to Chavez, the fiery and charismatic socialist whose death from cancer in March triggered Sunday’s vote.

“Every day I wake up thinking about him, and I go to bed thinking about him, in need of his guidance,” Maduro said.

He at times seemed to reach out to the opposition after beating Capriles by less than 2 percentage points compared to Chavez’s 11-point margin of victory in 2012.

“I call on those who for whatever reason did not vote for the candidate of the fatherland, I offer you an olive branch, I will work with you,” he said.

But at other times he compared his adversaries to those who persecuted Jews in Germany and accused them of sowing violence in the wake of the vote in an attempt to snatch power.

In an embarrassing breach of security, a young man in a red jacket ran up to the podium, pushed Maduro out of the way and shouted “Nicolas, my name is Yendrick, please help me,” into the microphone. He was tackled by bodyguards.

“Security has failed completely. They could have shot me up here,” said Maduro upon resuming his speech.

EXPANDED AUDIT

Overnight, the 50-year-old Maduro attended a last-minute meeting of South American leaders in Peru to discuss the post-election crisis. They congratulated him on his victory, and called on both sides to reject violence.

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 of the machines.

Venezuelans vote electronically, but the machines also print out paper receipts of each vote that are kept in boxes. The audit involves counting the paper ballots at some stations to ensure they are consistent with the machine-tallied results.

Capriles, who insists the opposition’s figures show he won, accepted the CNE’s decision although it fell short of the full manual recount he had wanted.

Even so, opposition legislators boycotted Maduro’s inauguration. Capriles urged supporters to play salsa music and bang pots and pans to protest the event, following similar protests since the night of the election.

“Let’s hear that salsa all over Venezuela! The voice of the people! This is a ‘for now’ government,” Capriles tweeted.

In upscale eastern Caracas, celebratory fireworks drowned out opposition protests.

The date for the start of the wider audit is to be announced next week. It is expected to take 30 days.

The CNE’s decision considerably eased tensions after days of violence and angry allegations by both sides that their rivals were sending armed thugs into the streets to terrorize people.

Maduro’s inauguration drew heads of state including Maduro’s Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff and Iran’sMahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with leaders of Chavez-era allies such as Bolivia, Uruguay and Nicaragua.

Ahmadinejad paid tribute to “the spirit and the soul of Commander Chavez, who had only love for all the peoples of the world” in comments to state television as he arrived at Congress, where the inauguration was held.

Russia and China, both involved oil projects in Venezuela’s vast Orinoco belt region, sent delegations.

DEEPLY POLARIZED

Thousands of government sympathizers surrounded Congress in downtown Caracas, dancing to upbeat music and clad in the Socialist Party’s signature red T-shirts.

Vendors peddled trinkets including foam mustaches that Maduro supporters tape to their upper lips in imitation of his facial hair.

“The streets out ours; we’ve come to defend them from the right wing,” said Carlos Poveda, 45, a merchant.

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

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

“My commander is still dead and his spirit is alive in Maduro,” said Rosalba Navarro, 44, who works with a government social program for single mothers, at a military fairgrounds waiting for the start of an independence day parade.

“I only ask that he treat the opposition with an iron hand and if Capriles needs to go to jail, that he go to jail,” she said, echoing calls by government officials that Capriles should be imprisoned for spurring violence over the last week.

Prominent Venezuelan human rights group Provea on Thursday questioned some of the alleged opposition attacks. It had been unable to find any evidence that the clinics, known as CDIs, were torched by opposition demonstrators.

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

“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!”

CARACAS: Venezuelan President-elect Nicolas Maduro accused the opposition on Tuesday of planning a coup against him after seven government supporters were killed in clashes over his disputed election victory.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles wants a full recount of votes from Sunday’s election after official results showed a narrow victory for Maduro, who is late socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor.

Opposition demonstrations outside electoral authority offices around the country passed off peacefully on Tuesday, in contrast to Monday night when youths in Caracas and other cities blocked streets, burned tires and fought with police.

The authorities said the seven deaths included two people shot by opposition sympathizers while celebrating Maduro’s win in a middle-class area of the capital, and one person killed in an attack on a government-run clinic.

“This is the responsibility of those who have called for violence, who have ignored the constitution and the institutions,” a furious Maduro said in a speech to the nation.

“Their plan is a coup d’etat.”

Officials also said more than 60 people had been injured, including one woman whom protesters tried to burn alive, and 170 people were arrested.

OPPOSITION MARCH CANCELED

Maduro said he would not allow an opposition march that had been planned for Wednesday in Caracas.

Capriles later called off the rally, accusing the government of plotting to “infiltrate” the gathering to cause violence, and then blame it on the opposition.

The opposition has not responded to specific allegations relating to the deaths, but Capriles has repeatedly called for only peaceful demonstrations and said that the government was responsible for violence by denying the call for an recount.

The prospect of prolonged instability in the OPEC nation with the world’s largest oil reserves has unnerved markets.

Venezuela’s volatile and highly traded debt has tumbled on the dispute and unrest, with the benchmark 2027 bond off more than 3.0 percent on Tuesday.

A continuation of violent protests, despite Capriles’ entreaties, could damage the opposition’s credibility.

Maduro has played up attacks by rock-throwing protesters on popular government programs such as clinics staffed by Cuban doctors and subsidized state-run supermarkets, saying they prove Capriles wants to scrap Chavez-era social welfare programs.

That accusation was a principal plank of Maduro’s campaign.

State TV has played images of burning buildings and masked demonstrators, along with footage of a failed 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez but led many Venezuelans to question the opposition’s democratic credentials.

Chavez back then was toppled from power for 48 hours but bounced back quickly, purged critics inside the armed forces and stepped up the pace of his socialist policies.

The election was triggered by the death of Chavez last month after a two-year battle with cancer. He named Maduro as his successor before he died, and his protégé won the election with 50.8 percent of the vote against Capriles’ 49.0 percent.

Maduro, who had initially said he was open to a recount, called on his supporters to demonstrate all week. The National Electoral Council (CNE) has refused to conduct a recount.

‘TWO HALVES’

The electoral authority’s results showed him winning by 265,000 votes, but opposition sources said their count showed Capriles had received an additional 300,000 to 400,000 votes that were unaccounted for in the official tally.

Capriles’ team said it has evidence of 3,200 irregularities, from voters using fake IDs to intimidation of volunteers at polling centers. It wants an exhaustive review of paper ballots.

“We believe we won … we want this problem resolved peacefully,” Capriles told a news conference. “There is no majority here, there are two halves.”

The CNE said an audit of 54 percent of the voting stations, in a widely respected electronic vote system, had already been carried out.

The U.S. State Department, which had previously urged a full audit, questioned the CNE’s refusal to accommodate Capriles.

“The CNE’s decision to declare Mr. Maduro the victor before completing a full recount is difficult to understand. And they did not explain their haste in taking this decision,” said department deputy spokesman Patrick Ventell.

Capriles’ strategy could backfire if demonstrations turn into prolonged disturbances, such as those the opposition led between 2002 and 2004, which sometimes blocked roads for days with trash and burning tires, annoying many Venezuelans.

Senior government figures have raised the possibility of legal action against Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, for inciting the violence.

The controversy over Venezuela’s first presidential election without Chavez on the ballot in two decades raised doubts about the future of “Chavismo” – the late leader’s self-proclaimed socialist movement – without its towering and mercurial founder.

Maduro’s slight margin of victory raises the possibility he could face future challenges from within the leftist coalition that united around Chavez, who won four presidential elections.

At his last election in October, the former soldier beat Capriles by 11 percentage points even though his battle against cancer had severely restricted his ability to campaign.

Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan electoral officials say voters have narrowly elected Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor as president in a razor-close special election Sunday.

Winner Nicolas Maduro campaigned on a promise to carry on Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution, and defeated a two-time challenger who claimed the late president’s regime has put Venezuelaon the road to ruin.

Officials say Maduro defeated Henrique Capriles by only about 300,000 votes. The margin was 50.8 percent to 49.1 percent.

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelans will vote April 14 to choose a successor to Hugo Chavez, the elections commission announced Saturday as increasingly strident political rhetoric begins to roil this polarized country.

The constitution mandated the election be held within 30 days of Chavez’s March 5 death, but the date picked falls outside that period. Critics of the socialist government already complained that officials violated the constitution by swearing in Vice PresidentNicolas Maduro as acting leader Friday night.

Some people have speculated Venezuela will not be ready to organize the vote in time, but elections council chief Tibisay Lucena said the country’s electronic voting system was fully prepared.

Lucena announced the date on state television while a small inset in the picture showed people filing past Chavez’s coffin at the military academy in Caracas, where his body has lain in state since Wednesday.

Chavez’s boisterous state funeral Friday often felt like a political rally for his anointed successor, Maduro, who eulogized him by pledging eternal loyalty and vowing Chavez’s movement will never be defeated. Maduro is expected to run as the candidate of Chavez’s socialist party.

Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, coordinator of the opposition coalition, immediately followed the election announcement by offering his bloc’s presidential candidacy to Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda state who lost to Chavez in October. A Capriles adviser said the governor would announce his decision Sunday.

David Smilde, an analyst with the U.S.-based Washington Office on Latin America, said the opposition needs to run a candidate in the presidential election even though he believes it will almost certainly lose.

Smilde said he wasn’t sure Capriles will accept the candidacy.

“If he says he doesn’t want to run I could totally understand that,” Smilde said. “He is likely going to lose, and if he loses this election, he’s probably going to be done.”

In that case the opposition would be wise to run someone such as Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledesma or Henry Falcone, governor of Lara state and one of just three opposition governors, he said.

That would give the opposition an opportunity to clearly articulate its platform and vision.

“Really what this campaign would be about is allowing the opposition to put themselves in position for the future, to show that they have some ideas for the country,” Smilde said.

In his speech after his swearing-in Friday, Maduro took shots at the United States, the media, international capitalism and domestic opponents he often depicted as treacherous. He claimed the allegiance of Venezuela’s army, referring to them as the “armed forces of Chavez,” despite the constitution barring the military from taking sides in politics.

The opposition has denounced the transition as an unconstitutional power grab, while the government moves to immortalize Chavez. Since his death, the former paratrooper has been compared to Jesus Christ and early-19th century Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar, and the government announced that his body would be embalmed and put on eternal display.

Edith Palmeira, a 47-year-old Caracas resident at a park Saturday in central Caracas, said she would vote for Maduro, but made clear her allegiance was based purely on her love of Chavez.

“Imitations are never as good as the original,” Palmeira said. “But I think he must have grown as a person during so much time at the president’s side. He must have learned to be a president.”

Elvira Orozco, a 31-year-old business owner, said she planned to sit out the vote to protest Maduro’s swearing-in Friday.

“What they want is to say that here there’s a democracy, but here they violate the constitution and there’s no authority who says anything,” Orozco said.

Observers voiced mounting concern about the deep political divide gripping Venezuela, with half of it in a near frenzy of adulation and the other feeling targeted.

“Everything that happened yesterday (with the funeral and Maduro’s speech) are outward signs of a fascistic aesthetic, complete with armbands,” said Vicente Gonzalez de la Vega, a professor of law at Caracas’ Universidad Metropolitana. “It is the cult of the adored leader, an escape from reality. … They are trying to impose on the rest of the country a new pagan religion.”

He said the ruling party was playing with fire with its strong nationalistic rhetoric and the implication that a vote against Maduro was somehow subversive.

Capriles, too, has used emotionally charged language in his public comments. On Friday he denounced Maduro as a shameless liar who had not been elected by the people, and condescendingly referred to him as “boy.”

Opposition figures have said they are concerned about the election’s fairness, particularly given the public vows of allegiance to Chavez from senior military officials. Capriles lost to Chavez in Oct. 7 elections, but he garnered 45 percent of the vote, which was the most anyone had ever won against the late president.

A boycott of 2005 legislative elections was widely seen as disastrous for the opposition, letting Chavez’s supporters win all 167 seats and allowing him to govern unimpeded by any legislative rivals.