All eyes were on the opposition candidate as word of the election results spread.

After tireless campaigning and vows of victory, what would he say to throngs of fired-up supporters? Would he snap, after months of keeping his cool as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sprinkled speeches with insults aimed at him?

On the night after the election, Henrique Capriles Radonski was quick to concede after official results revealed he had lost by more than 10 percentage points.

"To know how to win, you also must know how to lose," Capriles said. "The word of the people is sacred."

His words, analysts say, reveal a strategy that could play a key role in how Venezuela's opposition evolves.

"It was very magnanimous and, I think, very constructive," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue. "I think that's a real model for Venezuela and for other countries."

After any vote, the way the losing candidate responds can have an impact far beyond Election Day, said Barbara Kellerman, a lecturer on leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"This is much more about the future than it is about the present," she said.

'The country is not waiting for my insults'

On the campaign trail before masses of supporters, and in state television interviews broadcast nationwide, Chavez described Capriles as a "dirty swine" and a "fly" who was not worth chasing. He called him a "little Yankee" and assailed him as a member of the bourgeoisie.

"He never acknowledged his name, just talked about the rich kid, and taunted him, as Chavez tends to do," Shifter said. "Capriles defended himself. But there wasn't the rhetorical back and forth, the tit for tat."

From the outset, Capriles said he wanted to take a different tone.

"They insult me, hey, I am not going to respond with an insult. The country is not waiting for my insults. The country expects my commitment," he said in a February interview with the Televen network. "The country expects me to offer them a future."

Going head to head with Chavez was a tactic opposition politicians had unsuccessfully tried in the past, Shifter said.

"He's such a master at it. If you start to criticize him, then he'll come back with more," Shifter said. "He's demonstrated over 14 years that he plays this game better than anybody ... (and) he emerges stronger than ever."

Chavez still triumphed in Sunday's vote, Shifter said, but Capriles -- with more than 45% of votes -- came closer than any past presidential election opponent has come to defeating Chavez.

"It obviously resonated with over 6 million Venezuelans," Shifter said.

The opposition candidate was quick to reassure his supporters and stressed that he did not believe there was fraud at the polls.

He compared the election to the way diehard fans feel when Venezuela's national soccer team loses. They are devastated, he said, but they don't stop going to the stadium.

"Look, I am on my feet. I got up, as I am sure the great majority of Venezuelans got up today. You have to learn from every process. You have to reflect always on every contest," he said Tuesday. "This path that we started to build together, this path continues, not against anyone but in favor of a better future."

Maintaining a unified front may prove difficult for the opposition coalition that backed Capriles, said Miguel Tinker Salas, a Latin American history professor at Pomona College in California.

"The one thing that brought them together was the figure of Chavez," he said.

Stephen Johnson, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Capriles' reaction after Sunday's vote may help the opposition stick together.

"Conceding quickly and doing so in an honorable way is helpful in maintaining civility on the opposition side," Johnson said, "and also in moving beyond the elections."

A different approach