CARACAS: Late socialist leader Hugo Chavez's chosen successor Nicolas Maduro won Venezuela's presidential election by a whisker but now faces opposition protests plus a host of economic and political challenges in the OPEC nation.
The 50-year-old former bus driver, whom Chavez named as his preferred heir before dying from cancer, edged out opposition challenger Henrique Capriles with 50.7 percent of the votes in Sunday's election, according to election board returns.
Capriles took 49.1 percent, just 235,000 fewer ballots.
Capriles, whose strong showing beat most forecasts, refused to recognize the result and said his team had a list of more than 3,000 irregularities ranging from gunshots to the illegal reopening of polling centers.
A protracted election dispute could cause instability in a deeply polarized nation with the world's largest oil reserves.
Though some opposition supporters chanted "fraud," banged pots and pans and burned tires in protest, Capriles did not call them onto the streets en masse.
Maduro said he would accept a full recount, even as he insisted his victory was clean and dedicated it to Chavez.
"We've had a fair, legal and constitutional triumph," Maduro told his victory rally. "To those who didn't vote for us, I call for unity."
The election board said Maduro's win was "irreversible" and gave no indication of when it might carry out an audit. Critics say four of its five members are openly pro-government.
Maduro's slim victory provides an inauspicious start for the "Chavismo" movement's transition to a post-Chavez era, and raises the possibility that he could face challenges from rivals within the disparate leftist coalition.
Chavez beat Capriles by 11 percentage points in October, showing how quickly the gap between the two sides has eroded without the larger-than-life presence of the former leader.
Opinion polls had all predicted a comfortable win for Maduro, due to emotion over Chavez's March 5 death and the popularity of his social welfare programs, but they had also shown the gap narrowing fast in the final days.
Even so, the result took most Venezuelans by surprise, and demonstrated that Capriles' message on the campaign trail, where he slammed his rival as an incompetent and poor imitation of Chavez unable to fix the nation's myriad problems, had hit home.
Maduro was unable to match his former boss's charisma and electrifying speeches, but nevertheless benefited from a well-oiled party machine and poor Venezuelans' fears that the opposition might abolish Chavez's slum development projects.
The close election outcome capped an extraordinary two years for Venezuelans since Chavez's cancer was diagnosed in mid-2011, plunging the nation into uncertainty.
"The unpredictable narrow margin of the election results has proven how volatile the political scenario is," said Venezuelan political analyst Diego Moya-Ocampos.
"The death of Chavez was a game changer that is leading to the gradual reorganization of political power in Venezuela, in which the armed forces will play a key role behind the scenes."
The election raises doubts about the long-term appeal and durability of the movement that Chavez built, led and held together throughout his 14 years in power.
Maduro's supporters set off fireworks overnight and some sang and danced in the streets, but celebrations were far more muted than after Chavez's re-election last year.
Some supporters seemed to pay little attention to Maduro's speech, and it was only when he played a recording of the late president singing the national anthem that they burst into life.
"On one hand, we're happy, but the result is not exactly what we had expected," said Gregory Belfort, 32, a computer technician looking slightly dazed with other government supporters in front of the presidential palace.
"It means there are a lot of people out there who support Chavez but didn't vote for Maduro, which is valid."
Allies including China, Russia, Argentina and Cuba all congratulated Maduro.
