By STEVEN DUDLEY

CARACAS - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States Monday ratified preliminary results from the government's electoral council showing that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a recall vote Sunday.

''After our own analysis, we are in a condition to say that our results coincide with the electoral council's,'' said Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center acted as an independent observers in the vote.

The National Electoral Council's initial results, released early Monday, showed that with 94 percent of the precincts counted, Chavez had 4,991,483 votes and the opposition had 3,576,517.

''This has been a great victory for the Venezuelan people,'' Chavez told a crowd celebrating at the National Palace early Monday.

Opposition leaders said they would ask for an audit of the tallies, although results from a ''quick count'' taken by Súmate, an independent civil society group that helped organize the recall vote, closely coincided with those of the electoral council.

Chavez opponents had earlier claimed that their exit polls showed that had won nearly 60 percent of the votes.