Only six weeks in the grave, and Hugo Chávez’s socialist dream is fading fast. On Sunday night his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, won Venezuela’s presidential election, but only by a whisker.
Mr Maduro – the self-proclaimed “son of Chávez” – won 50.7 per cent of the ballot, versus 49.1 per cent for Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader, a difference of just 235,000 votes. That compares with an 11-point win for Mr Chavez in October’s presidential election. Mr Capriles has refused to accept the result until it is audited. Mr Maduro has accepted.
Assume that the count stands and there is no evidence of jiggery-pokery. That still represents no kind of mandate for Mr Maduro or the radical socialism he espouses. Venezuela has become a country split in half, apparently irreconcilably.