CARACAS: Venezuela’s new President Nicolas Maduro was roughly pushed aside during his inaugural address Friday by a man in a red shirt who ran on stage at the National Assembly and grabbed the microphone.
The incident caused momentary confusion as national television coverage of the event briefly went off the air, returning after Maduro had regained his composure and the youth had been moved off stage.
“Security has absolutely failed. They could have shot me here,” Maduro complained to the audience of presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries gathered in the assembly chamber.
Shaking it off, Maduro added, “Incident overcome.”
“Later, we will talk with this gentleman, but he knows that what he did is bad. This is an official event.”
Authorities identified the man as 28-year-old Yendri Sanchez, and said he was under investigation awaiting charges.
Nicolas Maduro, who replaced the late Hugo Chavez, called for dialogue with the opposition to build a better country “for everyone, by everyone.”
To cheers in the National Assembly, Maduro dedicated his oath of office to “the eternal memory of the supreme commander” Chavez, who dominated this oil-rich South American country for 14 years until dying from cancer in March.
Maduro, 50, said he wanted to begin his presidency “with a call to all Venezuelan men and women to continue to build a better fatherland of peace, an inclusive fatherland for everyone, by everyone.”
And he urged the opposition to “converse in the different settings where conversations can be held.”
But the new president also resumed attacks on the opposition, highlighting what has been a week of soaring political tensions since he was declared the winner of Sunday’s snap elections by a narrow margin of 1.8 percentage points.
Close allies Presidents Raul Castro of Cuba and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran were in the audience, along with the leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and neighboring Colombia.
Maduro had met the night before in Lima with regional leaders who extended their congratulations to the new government and urged all sides in the bitterly contested elections to accept “the official results.”
The endorsement came just hours after Venezuelan election authorities announced they would conduct an expanded audit of Sunday’s ballot returns in response to opposition demands for a full recount.
Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles immediately accepted, congratulating his followers on their “struggle for the truth.”
