U.S. welcomes 'an important end' to crisis

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The Bush administration yesterday proclaimed Venezuela's political crisis resolved and accepted President Hugo Chavez's victory in Sunday's recall referendum, but demanded a "transparent audit" into opposition charges of fraud.

Washington's verdict came a day later than many other countries, and it stopped short of congratulating Mr. Chavez.

"We certainly congratulate the people of Venezuela on how they have managed this," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. "This is an important end to Venezuela's political crisis."

Strengthened by his victory, Mr. Chavez set his sights yesterday on centralizing power, including exerting control over the courts, local police and the nation's broadcast stations.

The government is "going to deepen the social and democratic revolution in Venezuela," vowed Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, the right-hand man to Mr. Chavez, who has been praised by supporters for giving the poor majority better services and a voice in politics.

Mr. Ereli avoided mentioning Mr. Chavez by name.

"This is not about an individual's democratic credentials or not; it's about a country and a body politic dealing with a problem they had -- a constitutional and political challenge," he said.

"So people want to make it a U.S. versus this person or a U.S. versus that person issue, and it's not," he said. "It's not the way we've been approaching it."

The official count announced in Caracas showed that Mr. Chavez defeated the effort to remove him with 58 percent of the votes, with the opposition taking 42 percent.

"Venezuela has changed forever. There is no turning back," said Mr. Chavez, whose term ends in 2006.