Venezuela has entered a bitter election race to succeed late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, with his chosen successor branding his challenger a “fascist” after the opposition candidate accused him of exploiting Chavez’s death.
Miranda State Governor Henrique Capriles on Sunday accepted the nomination of the main opposition coalition for the April 14 election, immediately launching a broadside against Acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by accusing him of being “sick with power.”
“Nicolas, I won’t leave you an open path, mate. You are going to have to defeat me with votes,” said Capriles, who lost the presidential election in October last year to Chavez by 11 points and faces an uphill battle against Maduro.
Photo: Miraflores Palace / Reuters
Chavez, whose socialist revolution polarized the oil-rich nation, is casting a huge shadow over the election, with throngs of supporters flocking to see his body, lying in state since Wednesday last week at a Caracas military academy.
Maduro said the government will embalm Chavez’s body to be viewed “like Lenin” in a glass casket “for eternity.”
“Now on top of it all, you are using the body of the president to stage a political campaign,” Capriles said.
Photo: Reuters
After weeks of rumors about Chavez’s health, Maduro went on national television on Tuesday last week to tell the nation that the firebrand leftist had lost his two-year battle with cancer at the age of 58.
“Nicolas lied to this country,” Capriles said, adding that Maduro had been buying time during Chavez’s illness to prepare the election. “Who knows when president Chavez died?”
Chavez traveled to Cuba on Dec. 10 last year for a fourth round of surgery and was never heard from or seen in public again. He returned to Caracas on Feb. 18, but was not seen until his death.
Maduro went on state-run television minutes after Capriles’ press conference, standing in front of a picture of Chavez as he accused his rival of trying to foment violence with “disgusting” accusations.
“His mask has fallen and we can see his nauseating, fascist face,” he said, warning that the Chavez family was reserving the right to take “all legal action to defend the honor of president Hugo Chavez.”
Amid popular pressure to place Chavez alongside South American independence hero Simon Bolivar in the national pantheon, Maduro said he would propose a constitutional amendment today to the legislature to have Chavez moved.
The move would lead to a referendum in 30 days that could coincide with the presidential election.
Luis Vicente Leon, director of pollsters Datanalisis, said the grief over Chavez’s death gives the government an advantage in the race.
“It will be a battle between the divine and the human,” he said.
“It’s not a race between Capriles and Nicolas Maduro. It’s a race between Capriles and Chavez,” political scientist Farith Fraija said.
Capriles accused the government again of abusing its power and violating the constitution by swearing in Maduro as acting president on Friday, arguing that he should have stepped down to run for office.
Maduro countered that the opposition conveniently misinterpreted the constitution and that his inauguration followed the wishes of his predecessor, who had asked the nation to elect him if he died.
A recent survey by pollsters Hinterlaces gave Maduro a 14-point lead, though Capriles has questioned the firm’s reliability in the past.
Capriles, a 40-year-old energetic lawyer, gave the opposition its best result ever against Chavez last year, with 44 percent of the votes.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in