BY STEVE DUDLEY, PHIL GUNSON AND NANCY SAN MARTIN

CARACAS - Bolstered by a stunning victory in a hotly fought recall referendum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Monday vowed that he would carry on with his leftist ''revolution'' and urged Washington to ''respect'' his government.

Opposition leaders who battled for nearly three years for a vote to cut short Chavez's six-year term immediately charged fraud and said their own exit polls from Sunday's vote showed them handily defeating the president.

But their allegations were undermined when former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and César Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said their independent monitoring of the balloting process showed Chávez winning.

''After our own analysis, we are in a condition to say that our results coincide with the Electoral Council's,'' Carter said of the figures released by Venezuela's National Electoral Council at 4 a.m.

Both Carter's Atlanta-based Carter Center and the OAS said they used ''quick counts'' -- representative samples from polling stations across the country -- to verify the government's numbers.

The council's figures showed Chávez defeating Latin America's first presidential recall vote, 58 percent to 42 percent -- a wider margin than in his last presidential election victory in 2000.

A record 10 million voters took part in what turned out to be a 20-hour vote amid delays created by the sheer number of voters and problems with computerized fingerprint-checking machines used to prevent fraud.

Chávez's opponents accuse him of being an authoritarian ruler who has ruined this oil-rich country's economy and sparked a virtual class war by telling Venezuela's poor majority that their problems are the fault of the wealthy and the business class.

The 50-year-old former army lieutenant colonel has in turn branded his critics ''squalid'' and corrupt, and he has accused the Bush administration of financing the opposition.

''Hopefully, from this day on, Washington will respect the government and the people of of Venezuela,'' he declared in an predawn appearance on a balcony at the Miraflores presidential palace.

While the Cuban government and others around the world immediately congratulated Chávez, the Bush administration initially reacted cautiously to the victory. State Department spokesman Tom Casey praised the vote Sunday as ''relatively calm, relatively peaceful.'' Casey added that he hoped the referendum would help ``achieve a peaceful, democratic, constitutional solution to Venezuela's ongoing political crisis.''

Washington can ill afford to take sides in Venezuela's political crisis. Venezuela is Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' third largest producer, exporting about 1.3 million barrels of crude per day to the United States -- usually about 13 percent of U.S. needs.

The world markets reinforced this notion on Monday, when crude prices dipped slightly after the announcement of Chávez's victory.

But while the world oil market stabilized, political tensions in Venezuela remained high. Some opposition leaders called for their supporters to hit the streets in protest of Sunday's vote.

VIOLENCE, PROTEST

Authorities said a group of gunmen who displayed pro-Chávez posters opened fire on an opposition protest Monday, killing a woman and wounding 10 other people.

''We don't accept the fraud!'' chanted a group of Chávez opponents that burst into a hotel where Carter and Gaviria made their announcement. ``Down with the fraud!''

Súmate, a civil-society group that helped to organize the signature drive that forced the recall vote, said it had ''serious doubts'' that Chávez had in fact won the vote.

The group told journalists that its own exit polls, carried out at 300 voting centers, ''differed dramatically'' from the government tallies and had Chávez losing by a 59-41 percent vote. They said they could not account for the difference between their sampling and the outcome but noted that it was too large to be a statistical error.

Súmate officials urged the international observers to take physical control of the paper ballots printed by the electronic voting machines and check a sample against the government's tallies.

An OAS spokesman said the observers would try to honor that request, but it was not clear whether all five members of the National Electoral Council, which has three Chávez supporters on its board of directors, would agree to the request.

The victory revitalized Chávez and supporters who took to the streets to celebrate their leader.

SUPPORTERS' DELIGHT

''This is a popular victory,'' said Carlos Saco, 61, who was among dozens gathered outside the presidential palace to celebrate. ``The opposition lost. They never want to accept defeat, but machines don't lie.''

A delighted Chávez thanked his faithful during his balcony appearance and said his victory showed that Venezuelans support his ''Bolivarian revolution,'' a mixture of leftist and populist policies that he says are for the benefit of the country's poor.

''Venezuela has changed forever,'' Chávez told supporters. ``There is no turning back.''

Herald staff writer Frank Davies in Washington contributed to this report.