Tough start in Venezuela for Nicolas Maduro

CARACAS -- Inauguration day could have gone better for the man picked to lead Venezuela's socialist revolution for the next six years.

Hours before President Nicolas Maduro's swearing-in Friday, his government announced it would allow a full audit of the razor-thin vote that the opposition says he won by fraud, which analysts said was likely a bow to both domestic and international pressure.

Then the massive crowds that used to pack the streets for late leader Hugo Chávez failed to appear.

Finally, a spectator rushed the stage and interrupted Maduro's inaugural speech.

It was an inauspicious start to the first full term of the burly former bus driver laboring in Chávez's shadow.

Maduro, 50, who has the support of the Chavista bases, needs all the momentum he can muster to consolidate control of a country struggling with shortages of food and medicines; chronic power outages; and one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping rates.

Addressing a dozen heads of state including Presidents Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Raul Castro of Cuba and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Maduro promised to address crime and purge the country's popular social service programs of corruption and inefficiency, although he mentioned few specifics.

-- AP