Venezuela's top election official said Thursday, April 18 that authorities will complete a 100% audit of votes cast in Sunday's presidential election, CNN reported.
Tibisay Lucena, president of Venezuela's National Electoral Council, said officials decided on the audit after a lengthy debate.
Officials had already audited 54% of ballot boxes, and now will audit the remaining 46%, she said. The decision comes after opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski filed complaints with election officials about thousands of alleged violations during Sunday's vote.
"I want to congratulate our people, because this was a fight of all of you," Capriles said late Thursday.
Earlier this week, Lucena certified the election results and declared Nicolas Maduro president-elect, despite Capriles' calls for a recount.
Maduro secured 50.8% of votes in Sunday's election, while Capriles won 49 %, election officials said earlier this week.
Maduro is scheduled to be sworn in at a ceremony in Caracas on Friday. It was unclear late Thursday whether the audit would impact plans for his inauguration.
At the time of the electoral council's announcement, the president-elect was in Lima, Peru, where South American presidents were in an emergency meeting to discuss Venezuela's elections.
The narrow vote margin has sparked mounting tensions in Venezuela after the closely watched election to pick Hugo Chavez's successor to the presidency.
Venezuela's state-run AVN news agency said at least eight people have been killed in postelection violence across the country. The government news agency tied the deaths to opposition protests and said the victims were all followers of Maduro.
