Election for President post to be held on April in Venezuela
Caracas: The election commission of Venezuelans announced the date of April 14 to choose a successor to Hugo Chavez.
Lucena announced the date on state television while a small inset in the picture showed people filing past Chavez’s coffin at the military academy in Caracas, where his body has lain in state since Wednesday.
David Smilde, an analyst with the US-based Washington Office on Latin America, said the opposition needs to run a candidate in the presidential election even though he believes it will almost certainly lose.
Smilde said he wasn’t sure Capriles will accept the candidacy. “If he says he doesn’t want to run I could totally understand that,” Smilde said. “He is likely going to lose, and if he loses this election, he’s probably going to be done.”
In his speech after his swearing-in Friday, Maduro took shots at the United States, the media, international capitalism and domestic opponents he often depicted as treacherous. He claimed the allegiance of Venezuela’s army, referring to them as the “armed forces of Chavez,” despite the constitution barring the military from taking sides in politics.
The opposition has denounced the transition as an unconstitutional power grab, while the government moves to immortalize Chavez. Since his death, the former paratrooper has been compared to Jesus Christ and early-19th century Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar, and the government announced that his body would be embalmed and put on eternal display.
