New Defense research report from Business Monitor International is now available from Fast Market Research

Boston, MA -- (SBWire) -- 02/23/2013 --President Hugo Chavez defeated Henrique Capriles Radonski from the opposition's Mesa de la Unidad Democratica (MUD) coalition in the October 7 2012 election. While opinion polls offered a mixed picture, with polling results ranged from a 20-point lead for Chavez to a two-point lead for Capriles, they broadly suggested a Chavez victory. Moreover, although the August 25 explosion in Venezuela's largest refinery Amuay, which killed at least 42 people hurt Chavez's popularity, in our view it was not an election game-changer. With the results of a full investigation of the explosion unlikely to have been released before the election, Chavez will likely fend off responsibility for the incident, and minimise its electoral impact.

Chavez has chosen Nicolas Maduro as his vice-president following his victory in the October 7 presidential election. Maduro had been the country's foreign minister since 2006. Chavez named Maduro as vice-president during an event at the National Electoral Commission, where he was officially announced as the winner of the presidential election. Chavez will assume office for a fourth term in January 2013.

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Meanwhile, the government introduced a new gun law banning commercial sales of firearms and ammunition in an effort to improve security and curtail crime ahead of the general election in October. Only the army, police and certain specified groups are now allowed to buy arms from state-owned weapons manufacturers. The annual number of murders in the country reached a record high in 2011, according to a report released by the Venezuela Violence Observatory. The report revealed that at least 19,336 people were killed with an average of 53 murders a day.

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