Venezuela's election: Ebbing support, tightening grip IT TOOK Nicolás Maduro just ten days of campaigning to turn the political capital he inherited from Hugo Chávez to dust. Forty days after the fustian former president's death from cancer, Mr Maduro, his protégé, scraped the narrowest of victories in a snap presidential election held on April 14th. Less than two percentage points separated him from his opponent, Henrique Capriles of the centrist Democratic Unity coalition, who called for a recount. "You're the loser today," Mr Capriles told him, "you and what you represent." Facing protests, the government has made alarming moves to curtail civil liberties. The close result represents a dramatic shift away from chavismo. In October Chávez, a fiery and charismatic military populist, beat Mr Capriles by more than 1.6m votes to win a third six-year term. This time, despite another government campaign that made unhindered use of the apparatus of the state, Mr Maduro's margin was below 250,000. Diosdado Cabello, the speaker of the National Assembly and Mr Maduro's main political rival in the chavista camp, was quick to distance himself from the president-elect, tweeting the need for "profound self-criticism." He added that the reasons for the poor result should be "looked for even under the stones." It may not be necessary to search that far. Even among fervent chavistas, Mr Maduro, a former bus driver and latterly foreign minister, was seen as a dull candidate. Mimicking the speaking style and body language of Chávez, who was elevated to saintly status during the campaign, he seemed like a cheap imitation. He made a virtue of sticking entirely to ideas that had already been articulated by his mentor. Meanwhile, the rotten legacy of chavismo has become ever more apparent. During the four months since the late president's last public appearance there have been two currency devaluations and a spike in inflation. Food is scarcer than ever. The government met its poor showing with indecision, followed by repression. After initially agreeing to a recount, it backtracked, and Mr Maduro was hurriedly proclaimed the winner. Tibisay Lucena, the president of the electoral authority, rejected calls to check the paper ballots against the electronic result. Echoing the words of Mr Maduro's campaign chief, she said that it would mean a return to the bad old days of manual voting. Opposition supporters began a spontaneous pot-banging protest that was deafening even in the poor barrios of Caracas, traditional chavista strongholds. An even louder protest in the evening, called by Mr Capriles, lasted over an hour. On April 17th the president of the Supreme Court declared that a recount would be unconstitutional. Despite Mr Capriles" calls for calm, opposition supporters in various cities took to the streets. The government mobilised its forces, too. By the official count, seven people died, dozens were injured and 170 arrested in incidents for which each side blamed the other. Mr Maduro alleged that the opposition's intention was to provoke violence in order to trigger a coup. Invoking memories of 2002, when Chávez was briefly ousted after an opposition march on the presidential palace had ended with a score of deaths, he imposed an illegal ban on a protest march in central Caracas planned for April 17th. Fearing more violence, Mr Capriles called it off. The president-elect has accused the United States of being behind the supposed coup plot. "We waged a campaign under the terms of the constitution...They waged a war," he said. Calling for a recount, the yanquis have not recognised Mr Maduro's victory. An emergency meeting of South American presidents was due to take place on April 18th. Both sides face tricky decisions. Mr Maduro may calculate that if he can provoke the opposition into staging violent protests he will have an excuse to crack down. That would not only divert attention from the tainted election but possibly strengthen his own hand within the chavista movement. Several opposition leaders, including Mr Capriles and Leopoldo López, leader of the Popular Will party, have been threatened with arrest. Mr Capriles says he fears for his safety. If the opposition does not back down, Mr Maduro roared, "I am prepared to radicalise the revolution!" That is red meat to the chavista faithful, but it will not put food on the table. The government's adherence to rigid statism, including the expropriation of private companies and stringent price and exchange controls, has brought empty shelves, inflation of 25% and a yawning fiscal deficit. Many commentators had predicted that Mr Maduro would have to adopt a more pragmatic economic policy once the election was out of the way. The clearest sign of such a move would be the removal of the long-serving finance minister, Jorge Giordani, a champion of central planning and an overvalued currency. But that is unlikely to happen amid promises of radicalisation. Mr Capriles is obliged to maintain pressure on the government while avoiding violence, which the government seems prepared to use. If he is to keep the initiative, he must present solid evidence that election-day irregularities justify a recount. Speaking to the foreign press on April 16th, he said that in 283 polling stations opposition witnesses had been expelled, sometimes at gunpoint. And he claimed that in nearly 1,200 polling stations Mr Maduro had mysteriously obtained far more votes than Chávez did in October's election. After Sunday's vote the government can hardly claim a mandate for the "irreversible socialist revolution" it seeks. Instead, it appears determined to impose its will by force. On April 16th Mr Cabello used his position in the National Assembly to tell legislators who did not recognise Mr Maduro as president that they were not allowed to speak. Calling them "fascist murderers," he warned them not to "play with fire," because only Hugo Chávez had been able to hold the revolution in check. Opposition deputies were stripped of their committee presidencies. Two were injured, apparently by chavistas. Venezuela once again feels like a country on the brink.