Venezuela will proclaim Nicolas Maduro the victor in yesterday’s election, less than 12 hours after the opposition disputed the closest vote in 45 years.

Maduro, who the national electoral council said won the election with 50.8 percent of the vote, will be proclaimed the winner at 2 p.m. in Caracas, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas wrote on his Twitter account today. Vicente Diaz, part of the five-person electoral council, said a recount will take place and that Maduro’s victory could be revoked if irregularities occurred.

“Until every vote has been counted and fully audited, there is an illegitimate president and we will denounce it to the world,” Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski wrote on his Twitter account today.

Capriles, who took 49 percent of the vote with 99.17 percent of ballots counted, told reporters last night that the opposition has evidence of irregularities that affected hundreds of thousands of votes. The margin of victory was the narrowest since the 1968 presidential election and may lead to political unrest as almost half the country questions the government’s legitimacy, said Russell Dallen, a Miami-based bond trader at Caracas Capital Markets.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-15/chavez-heir-maduro-wins-venezuela-presidency-to-continue-legacy.html