A triumphant Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s anti-American president, left his supporters in no doubt about his intent following a landslide election win. Addressing thousands of jubilant supporters from the balcony of the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Mr Chávez, a former soldier, announced that the result marked the beginning of “a new era, a point of departure and a point of advance. The fundamental strategic line is the deepening and widening of the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism.”

If confirmed in final results, the 23 percentage-point margin of victory over Manuel Rosales, the losing presidential contender, would be wider than the margins achieved by Mr Chávez in the three previous electoral contests he has fought and won: the 1998 election, the 2000 re-election and the recall referendum of 2004. It looks like a mandate for radical change and unsurprisingly, Mr Chávez dedicated his re-election victory to Fidel Castro, the ailing Cuban leader, and described the result as “a defeat for the empire of Mister Danger” - his favourite description for US President George W. Bush.