Venezuela Election 2013 Protests: Thousands Rally Against Chavez's Heir Maduro

UPDATE:

Thousands of supporters of Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles took to the streets of Caracas and other cities banging pots, burning trash bags and chanting in protest for what their candidate sees as "fraudulent results" of the OPEC country's Sunday election to elect a successor to the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez. 

From Yahoo Australia:

Monday's demonstration erupted as the National Electoral Council (CNE) certified the victory of acting President Nicolas Maduro against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who refused to concede defeat and demanded a full recount.

Previous Coverage:

On Sunday, an estimated 19 million Venezuelans, still stunned by the untimely death of their larger-than life socialist leader Hugo Chavez, will go to the polls to decide between Interim President Nicolas Maduro — Chavez's successor — and Henrique Capriles Radonski, a popular governor from the opposition who in October 2012 lost to Chavez by ten points.

Though Maduro, a former bus driver who ascended the ranks of the Bolivarian Revolution to become Chavez's vice president, has been the long-favored, a series of recent missteps on the campaign trail — he accused the United States of giving Chavez cancer, claimed the recently-deceased leader "appeared" to him as a bird, and invoked a curse on opposition voters — seemed to have fueled a late surge by Capriles, who's closed the gap albeit narrowly (local pollster Datanalisis, cited by the Associated Press, puts Maduro at 55% and Capriles at 45%.

However, the charismatic opponent, known as el flaco ("the skinny"), among its supporters, seems emboldened by a sudden courage that however lacked back when he campaigned against the late Comandante. Capriles, imprisoned in 2002 for supposedly plotting against the Cuban embassy in Caracas, has been cruising the country rightfully denouncing the 20% inflation rate and the continent's highest crime rate that 14 years of Chavismo left as a legacy.   

But Capriles' hill is steep, as Maduro, that despite lacking Chavez's charisma, counts with the Revolución's monstrous infrastructure to mobilize millions of red-clad supporters of Chavismo.