Chávez Heir Maduro Sworn in as Vote Dispute Roils Investors
Chávez Heir Maduro Sworn in as Vote Dispute Roils Investors
AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth points out that President-elect Nicolás Maduro will face pressure from his own party and the opposition as questions over his legitimacy increase tensions in Venezuela.
Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s president after a week in which rising tensions with the opposition over the disputed April 14 vote undermined investor confidence in how the government will manage the world’s largest oil reserves.
Maduro, 50, accepted the yellow, blue and red presidential sash from Maria Gabriela Chavez, the daughter of late President Hugo Chavez, after taking the oath of office at a ceremony in Caracas. Maduro’s inauguration speech was briefly interrupted when a man ran up to the podium at the National Assembly building and grabbed the microphone away from him.
“To those who voted against me, I am the president for the coming years,” Maduro said in his speech. “I was trained by comandante Hugo Chavez.”
In the five days since the National Electoral Council named Chavez’s political heir the winner of the April 14 vote, Maduro has threatened Spanish energy company Repsol SA and accused opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski of inciting a coup. Political clashes left eight people dead, the government said.
“It’s the worst possible scenario for the industry: a whole new level of volatility,” Carlos Bellorin, an oil analyst at research company IHS, said by phone from London. “I don’t see any oil company committing a lot of resources to Venezuela right now….”
Maduro will face as much pressure from within his own ranks as from the opposition, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Council of the Americas in Washington. National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello’s comment on Twitter that the margin of victory called for self-criticism is a “pretty sharp shot across the bow,” Farnsworth said….
