Venezuela's Capriles says state "stole" elections, writer chides "complicit" neighbours

Venezuela's former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonsky accused the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro of "stealing" the 14 April elections, a bitterly fought contest whose results the opposition had yet to accept. The Table of Democratic Unity (Mesa de Unidad Demócratica, MUD) led by Capriles has demanded a recount of all votes and Capriles said on 24 April that the opposition would not settle for less. "We won't let them mock us, we will not accept a partial audit or some absurdity, and if there is no response we shall tell the country what our next steps will be," El Nacional reported. He said to the government, "you stole these elections...and you are the ones who must explain to the world what hapened." He accused the government of intimidating opinion, citing in particular a video of the Venezuelan Labour Minister Ricardo Molina posted online, wherein he seemingly threatens to dismiss civil servants who voted for the opposition. Molina later said his words were taken "out of context, they always do this." One Venezuelan academic claimed on 25 April that public-sector employees were indeed being dismissed, apparently for having voted for Capriles. Ligia Bolívar, director of the Human Rights Centre at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (Ucab) in Caracas said "there is a disconcerting and massive situation of dismissals of civil servants for exercising the right to vote;" she suggested state agents had tapped people's telephones and were also checking what people had scribbled on websites like Twitter and Facebook, Globovisión reported. Separately, the Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa rebuked Latin American leaders for rushing to recognise the new Venezuelan government, calling them "accomplices against the Venezuelan people," EFE and other media reported on 23 April. Spèaking to the Brazilian publication Epoca, Vargas Llosa urged regional leaders not to legitimize "a possible electoral fraud" by attending Maduro's inauguration. Maduro was duly sworn in as president on 19 April before foreign officials including all Latin American presidents bar those of Chile, Ecuador and Paraguay. The latter presently has no ties with Venezuela. Vargas Llosa singled out Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in this "deplorable" act of recognition, but said "she is not the only case." He observed that the close results and transfer of millions of votes to the opposition in spite of the government's "disproportionate" resources "clearly" meant Venezuelans were turning against the socialist ideology of late President Hugo Chávez.

Conservative becomes Paraguay's President

Paraguayans voted in Horacio Cartes of the conservative Colorado party as president on 21 April, in general elections expected to end the diplomatic isolation provoked by parliament's dismissal in 2012 of the elected, Leftist president, Fernando Lugo. the Liberal candidate Efraín Alegre was runner-up while Aníbal Carrillo, candidate of the Frente Guasu formation of former president Lugo obtained a small percentage of votes, Europa Press reported. Unasur - the Union of South American Nations - recognized the results and Cartes reportedly began contacts to hasten Paraguay's return to the southern trading block Mercosur, from which it was excluded after Lugo's dismissal. Venezuela's socialist President Nicolás Maduro spoke by phone to Cartes, discussing Paraguay's return to Mercosur and a normalization of bilateral ties, Europa Press reported on 24 April. The two states effectively severed ties after Lugo's fall, while their deteriorating relations recently degenerated into bitter verbal exchanges between Venezuelan officials and Paraguay's provisional government led by the conservative Federico Franco. Franco was to hand over power on 15 August, Europa Press reported. Cartes meanwhile named a transitional government team that included: Juan Carlos López Moreira, a businessman and close associate as the team's general coordinator, Leila Rachid Lichi, Paraguay's foreign minister in 2003-6, in charge of foreign affairs and the former Central Bank governor Germán Rojas Irigoyen as a provisional economy minister, ICN Diario reported on 24 April.