The Star Online: World Updates
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- Tight election raises tensions in Venezuela
- Defiant North Korea celebrates founder's anniversary
- Venezuela's opposition alleges plan to manipulate vote
| Tight election raises tensions in Venezuela Posted: 14 Apr 2013 08:25 PM PDT CARACAS (Reuters) - Both sides in an election to choose a successor to Venezuela's late leader Hugo Chavez expressed confidence of victory after Sunday's vote, raising fears that the official result could be contested.
Acting President Nicolas Maduro led all polls before the vote, buoyed by Chavez's blessing before he died from cancer last month and vowing to continue the former president's self-styled socialist revolution. But Maduro's rival, state governor Henrique Capriles, appeared to close the gap in the last days of the short campaign. By late evening, there was still no word from the National Electoral Commission, which announces results only when there is an irreversible trend. An election board source said 98 percent of returns were in, indicating that it was a tight contest. Government supporters began gathering and celebrating, but there was similar optimism at opposition headquarters. "Father, brother, eternal commander ... your people did not fail you," Diosdado Cabello, a senior Chavez loyalist and head of the National Assembly, said in a tweet addressing the late leader. Ramon Aveledo, a top opposition official, also struck an optimistic tone. "We have millions of reasons to be happy," he told a news conference. "The head of the official campaign is cheating the people of this country." Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, alleged earlier on Sunday evening that there was a plan to try to change the result of the vote, but did not give details. Government officials described his allegation as irresponsible and said it ran the risk of adding to a tense atmosphere, including isolated scuffles at some centres. "For a few days the 'anti-Chavistas' have been trying to create an absurd notion of fraud in an automated voting system, one that is recognized in the whole world as secure, trustworthy and transparent," said Maduro's campaign chief Jorge Rodriguez. "To that gentleman's followers, we say: 'Don't go crazy.'" Whoever wins will inherit control of the world's biggest oil reserves in an OPEC nation, where stark political polarization is one of Chavez's many legacies. Also at stake is the generous economic aid Chavez showered on left-wing Latin American governments from Cuba to Bolivia. Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver, has promised to deepen Chavez's "21st century socialism" if he triumphs. Capriles, who has generated widespread enthusiasm among the opposition, wants to take Venezuela down a more centrist path. Under Venezuelan law, the candidate with the most votes wins, with no possibility of a run-off. The election system has been generally regarded as reliable, and the opposition immediately accepted the results of the last election in October. Critics say, however, that the election commission turns a blind eye to the use of state resources by government candidates during campaigning. Some witnesses reported isolated incidents of violence, including clashes during vote-auditing at two centres in Caracas. Some people were hurt in a fracas in the Santa Rosa de Lima district of the capital, while teargas was thrown in another city district, Prados del Este, the witnesses said. LOWER TURNOUT Lines were shorter than they were at the election in October, when an ailing Chavez comfortably beat Capriles by 11 percentage points. Then, a record 80 percent of registered voters cast ballots following an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign by Chavez's camp. When Chavez won that election, the result was given at about 10 p.m. local time (0230 GMT). Maduro built his election campaign largely on Chavez's legacy, especially among the poor. "We're going to elect Maduro because he's following the path set by Chavez," Morelia Roa, a 58-year-old nurse, said after casting her ballot in a working class Caracas neighbourhood. Given the deep mutual mistrust on both sides, some worry that a close or contested result could spark unrest. Some 170 international observers were on hand, many from left-leaning political parties across Latin America. Sunday's vote was the first presidential election in two decades without Chavez on the ballot. In many ways, though, it was all about the late president, viewed by the poor as a messiah for giving them a political voice and for funnelling billions of dollars of oil revenue into social programs. Critics saw him as an autocratic leader who bullied opponents and weakened the economy with waves of nationalizations, price controls and heavy government spending. Maduro campaigned as a loyal disciple of Chavez, calling himself an "apostle" and "son" of the late president. Chavez gave Maduro a huge boost by endorsing him in his final speech in December before heading to Cuba for his last cancer operation. True to form, Maduro dedicated his vote on Sunday to his political mentor. "The last 21 years of my life have revolved around the dreams of a man, of a giant," an emotional Maduro said. "I never thought I'd be here. But here I am ... And I'm going to be president of the republic for the next six years." WINNER'S CHALLENGES If Maduro wins, he will immediately face big challenges as he tries to stamp his authority on a disparate ruling coalition while lacking his mentor's charisma, or the healthy state finances that Chavez enjoyed in last year's race. It is hard to predict how he might do things his own way. Like many senior officials, Maduro was passionately loyal to Chavez and never voiced a different opinion in public. Supporters say he could use his background as a union negotiator-turned-diplomat to build bridges, perhaps even with the United States after tensions during Chavez's 14-year rule. But there was little sign of his softer side on the campaign trail. Maduro's rhetoric veered from outraged - alleging opposition plots to kill him using mercenaries - to light-hearted, such as poking fun at his own often-cited tale of how he was visited by Chavez's spirit in the form of a bird. More often he sounded indignant, accusing the "far right" of plotting a repeat of a short-lived coup against Chavez a decade ago if the opposition loses Sunday's vote. Maduro's camp said his Twitter account was hacked during the day, as well as those of other senior Socialist Party members, with obscene messages posted on them. Should he pull off an upset, Capriles will also have a tough time running Venezuela. One of the biggest challenges will be to win over suspicious supporters of Chavez and Maduro. Both repeatedly derided the opposition candidate as a pampered rich kid, a traitor, and a puppet of "U.S. imperialism." In last year's campaign, Capriles carefully avoided disparaging Chavez, in a bid to woo the poor. He has not afforded Maduro the same respect, denouncing him and his "coterie" as phony socialists who have enriched themselves while paying only lip service to Chavez's deeply held ideology. Capriles touts a Brazilian-style model that mixes pro-business policies with heavy state spending on the poor, a recipe that made Brazil one of the world's hottest emerging economies in the past decade. The opposition hopes bubbling discontent over daily problems such as rampant crime, high inflation, chronic power outages and occasional shortages of food staples and medicines will tip the vote in favour of Capriles. "Capriles is our only hope. He's the best leader the opposition has had and could be a great president," Alberto Gomez, a 55-year-old bakery owner, said after voting in an upscale district of Caracas. (Additional reporting by Caracas bureau reporters; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Kieran Murray and David Brunnstrom)
Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Defiant North Korea celebrates founder's anniversary Posted: 14 Apr 2013 08:02 PM PDT SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea celebrated the 101st anniversary of its founder's birth on Monday with no signs of tension easing on the peninsula after it rejected talks with South Korea aimed at normalising ties and re-opening a joint industrial park.
The United States has also offered talks, but on the pre-condition that North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea deems its nuclear arms a "treasured sword" and has vowed never to give them up. The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan since new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February. South Korea's Defence Ministry said it remained on guard against a possible new missile launch to coincide with the Day of the Sun, the date state founder Kim Il-Sung was born. But officials discounted speculation that the North would proceed with a launch or a new nuclear test on the anniversary itself. "North Korea is not believed to have launched a missile on the occasion of the Day of the Sun, of which today's is the 101st," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a briefing. "But the military is not easing up on its vigilance on the activities of the North's military with the view that they can conduct a provocation at any time." Kim Il-Sung was born in 1912 and led his country from its founding in 1948, through the 1950-53 Korean War and until he died in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, then took over. The South Korean Unification Ministry, which oversees relations with the North, said it was "regrettable" that the North had rejected an offer of talks, made last week by President Park Geun-hye. It said the offer would remain on the table. Missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea are both banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions, that were expanded after its third nuclear test, in February. The aim of the North's aggressive acts, analysts say, is to bolster the leadership of Kim Jong-un, 30, the grandson of the reclusive state's founder, or to force the United States to hold talks with the North. THIRD IN FAMILY DYNASTY The third Kim to rule in Pyongyang attended a midnight celebration of his father and grandfather's rule with top officials, including his kingmaker uncle Jang Song-thaek and the country's top generals. In Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after making a weekend offer to hold talks with the North if it abandoned its nuclear weapons programme. Japan also said it was willing for talks with North Korea if Pyongyang took steps toward de-nuclearisation. Kerry's trip to South Korea, China and Japan was aimed at reassuring its allies and putting pressure on Beijing to act decisively to implement the U.N. sanctions. Kerry said he believes China, the North's sole economic and political benefactor, should put "some teeth" in efforts to persuade Pyongyang to alter its policies. The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, warned on Monday that tensions could get out of control. "Bad things will always happen if a bowstring is drawn for too long," the paper wrote in a commentary. "It does not matter if it is intentional or accidental, even the smallest thing could cause the situation to change rapidly and perhaps get totally out of control." If matters did go out of control, it said, "no party will be able to stand on the side". North Korea has repeatedly stressed that it fears the United States wants to invade it and has manipulated the United Nations to weaken it. At the weekend, the North rejected the overture by new South Korean President Park as a "cunning" ploy. "We will expand in quantity our nuclear weapons capability, which is the treasure of a unified Korea ... that we would never barter at any price," Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's titular head of state, told a gathering of officials and service personnel applauding the achievements of Kim Il-Sung. Kim Il-Sung's birthday is usually marked with a mass parade to showcase the North's military might. In 2012, following the death of his father, Kim Jong-un made a public speech, the first in living memory for a North Korean leader. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO, Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Robert Birsel and Raju Gopalakrishnan) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Venezuela's opposition alleges plan to manipulate vote Posted: 14 Apr 2013 07:15 PM PDT CARACAS (Reuters) - Opposition leader Henrique Capriles charged there was a plot to change the result of Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela, which will decide if a longtime loyalist continues Hugo Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution.
By mid-evening, both Capriles' camp and that of acting President Nicolas Maduro expressed confidence that they had won, raising concerns that the results might be contested. Maduro led polls heading into the vote, buoyed by Chavez's blessing before he died from cancer on March 5, but Capriles appeared to be closing the gap in the final days of the short campaign. There was no word from the National Electoral Commission which only announces results when there is an irreversible trend. Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, called on the election authorities to close polling stations that were due to shut their doors at 6 p.m. (6:30 p.m. ET/2230 GMT), unless there were still lines of people waiting. "We alert the country and the world of the intention to try and change the will expressed by the people," Capriles said in a Twitter message, without giving details. Government officials described those allegation as irresponsible and said it ran the risk of adding to a tense atmosphere, including isolated scuffles at some centres. "For a few days the 'anti-Chavistas' have been trying to create an absurd notion of fraud in an automated voting system, one that is recognized in the whole world as secure, trustworthy and transparent," said Maduro's campaign chief Jorge Rodriguez. "To that gentleman's followers, we say: 'Don't go crazy.'" Venezuela's election system has been generally regarded as reliable, with the opposition immediately accepting the results of the last election in October. Critics say, however, that the election commission turns a blind eye to the use of state resources by government candidates during campaigning. Some witnesses reported isolated incidents of violence, including clashes during vote-auditing at two centres in Caracas. Some people were hurt in a fracas in the Santa Rosa de Lima district of the capital, while teargas was thrown in another city district, Prados del Este, the witnesses said. Whoever wins will inherit control of the world's biggest oil reserves in an OPEC nation, where stark political polarization is one of Chavez's many legacies. Also at stake is the generous economic aid Chavez showered on left-leaning Latin American governments from Cuba to Bolivia. Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver, has promised to deepen Chavez's "21st century socialism" if he triumphs. Capriles, who has generated widespread enthusiasm among the opposition, wants to take Venezuela down a more centrist path. CHAVEZ'S PATH Lines were shorter than they were at the election in October, when an ailing Chavez comfortably beat Capriles. Then, a record 80 percent of registered voters cast ballots following an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign by Chavez's camp. "We're going to elect Maduro because he's following the path set by Chavez," Morelia Roa, a 58-year-old nurse, said after casting her ballot in a working class Caracas neighbourhood. Given the deep mutual mistrust on both sides, some worry that a close or contested result could spark unrest. Some 170 international observers were on hand, many from left-leaning political parties across Latin America. Sunday's vote was the first presidential election in two decades without Chavez on the ballot. In many ways, though, it was all about the late president, viewed by the poor as a messiah for giving them a political voice and for funnelling billions of dollars of oil revenue into social programs. Critics saw him as an autocratic leader who bullied opponents and weakened the economy with waves of nationalizations, price controls and heavy government spending. Maduro campaigned as a loyal disciple of Chavez, repeatedly calling himself an "apostle" and "son" of the late president. Chavez gave Maduro a huge boost by publicly endorsing him in his final speech in December before heading to Cuba for his last cancer operation. True to form, Maduro dedicated his vote on Sunday to his political mentor. "The last 21 years of my life have revolved around the dreams of a man, of a giant," an emotional Maduro said. "I never thought I'd be here. But here I am ... And I'm going to be president of the republic for the next six years." WINNER'S CHALLENGES If Maduro wins, he will immediately face big challenges as he tries to stamp his authority on a disparate ruling coalition while lacking his mentor's charisma, or the healthy state finances that Chavez enjoyed in last year's race. It is hard to predict how he might do things his own way. Like many senior officials, Maduro was passionately loyal to Chavez and never voiced a different opinion in public. Supporters say he could use his background as a union negotiator-turned-diplomat to build bridges, perhaps even with the United States after tensions during Chavez's 14-year rule. But there was little sign of his softer side on the campaign trail. Maduro's rhetoric veered from outraged - alleging opposition plots to kill him using mercenaries - to light-hearted, such as poking fun at his own often-cited tale of how he was visited by Chavez's spirit in the form of a bird. More often he sounded indignant, accusing the "far right" of plotting a repeat of a short-lived coup against Chavez a decade ago if the opposition loses Sunday's vote. Maduro's camp said his Twitter account was hacked during the day, as well as those of other senior Socialist Party members, with obscene messages posted on them. Should he pull off an upset, Capriles will also have a tough time running Venezuela. One of the biggest challenges will be to win over suspicious supporters of Chavez and Maduro. Both repeatedly derided the opposition candidate as a pampered rich kid, a traitor, and a puppet of "U.S. imperialism." In last year's campaign, Capriles carefully avoided disparaging Chavez, in a bid to woo the poor. He has not afforded Maduro the same respect, denouncing him and his "coterie" as phony socialists who have enriched themselves while paying only lip service to Chavez's deeply held ideology. Capriles touts a Brazilian-style model that mixes pro-business policies with heavy state spending on the poor, a recipe that made Brazil one of the world's hottest emerging economies in the past decade. The opposition hopes bubbling discontent over daily problems such as rampant crime, high inflation, chronic power outages and occasional shortages of food staples and medicines will tip the vote in favour of Capriles. "Capriles is our only hope. He's the best leader the opposition has had and could be a great president," Alberto Gomez, a 55-year-old bakery owner, said after voting in an upscale district of Caracas. (Additional reporting by Caracas bureau reporters; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Kieran Murray and David Brunnstrom)
Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
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