Venezuela Says Chávez Successor Wins Vote

CARACAS—Nicolás Maduro, a one-time bus driver who went on to become a confidant of late President Hugo Chávez, won a razor-thin victory in Venezuela's presidential elections on Sunday, election authorities said.

The narrow margin prompted the opposition to call for a full recount, setting the stage for rising tensions in this deeply divided nation, which holds the world's largest reserves of oil and is sliding toward economic crisis after 14 years of free-spending rule by the late populist.

Mr. Maduro, handpicked by Mr. Chavez as his successor, took 7.505 million votes, or 50.6%, while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles received 7.27 million ballots, officials said….

"We won a just, legal, constitutional election," Mr. Maduro said on the balcony of Venezuela's Miraflores presidential palace, as fireworks boomed overhead and a crowd of redshirted supporters waved flags and cheered. "If I had lost by one vote, I would have accepted my responsibility."

Mr. Maduro, 50 years old, at first called on the election agency to carry out a recount of just over half the ballots, saying a full recount would lead to weeks of potential political instability. But then within minutes, he shifted gears and said he would accept a full recount....

"I don't know why anyone would want the job because the challenges are so many; all the problems are tightly bound around the mismanagement that took course over the 14 years of Chávez," said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, a think tank based in New York, Washington and Miami. "There's going to be contraction in the economy, and Venezuelans are going to wake up and realize that the party is over…."

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