Venezuela’s President-elect Nicolas Maduro waves to supporters as he arrives at the national Assembly for his inaugural ceremony in Caracas, Venezuela, on Friday.

The day didn’t go well for the man picked to lead Venezuela’s socialist revolution for the next six years.

Hours before his swearing-in, fellow South American leaders pushed Maduro into a concession allowing a full audit of the razor-thin vote that the opposition says he won by fraud. Then the massive crowds that used to pack the streets for late leader Hugo Chavez failed to appear.

Finally, a spectator rushed the stage and interrupted Maduro’s inaugural speech, shouting into the microphone before he was tackled by security in an embarrassing gaffe.

It was an inauspicious start to the first full term of the burly former bus driver laboring in Chavez’s shadow and struggling to inspire the fervor that surrounded the former lieutenant colonel during his 14 years in power. Maduro, who has the support of the Chavista bases, needs all the momentum he can muster to consolidate control of a country struggling with shortages of food and medicines; chronic power outages; and one of the world’s highest homicide and kidnapping rates.