Venezuela accuses opposition of plotting coup, seven dead

By Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne

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

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

The deaths happened on Monday when protesters flooded parts of the capital Caracas and cities in the interior, blocking streets, burning tires and fighting with security forces.

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

Officials also said 61 people were injured, including one woman whom protesters tried to burn alive.

Authorities have arrested 135 people.

"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 on Tuesday. "Their plan is a coup d'etat."

The opposition did not respond 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 its call for an recount.

INSTABILITY

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 be damaging for the opposition.

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

Maduro said he will not allow a big opposition march planned for Wednesday in Caracas to demand a vote recount, which could lead to further clashes if the opposition goes ahead anyway.

"It's time for a firm hand in the face of this fascism and intolerance," he said.

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 prot?g? 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.

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 had been 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 are not going to ignore the will of the people. 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 State Department deputy spokesman Patrick Ventell.

OPPOSITION RISKS

Capriles's 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.

Rallies around the country, from supporters of both sides, went ahead on Tuesday largely without any problems.

"We're here because we know we won and there was fraud," said Dairy Garces, 29, at an opposition demonstration of some 3,000 people near the CNE office in the western city of Coro.

"This is a fight for a better future for our children."

A day earlier, demonstrators in an upscale district of Caracas, some wearing T-shirts wrapped around their faces, had thrown sticks and stones at ranks of riot police.

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.

Chavez named Maduro as his heir in an emotional last public speech to the nation before his death, giving the former foreign minister and vice president a huge boost ahead of the vote.

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.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Wallis, Eyanir Chinea, Diego Ore and Girish Gupta in Caracas; Sailu Urribarri in Paraguana; Javier Farias in Tachira; Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by Kieran Murray, Jackie Frank and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-rivals-rally-supporters-four-people-reported-dead-150350204.html

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