Venezuela Begins Race To Choose Hugo Chavez's Successor
Comments (1)
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles will take another shot at replacing Hugo Chavez after last year's election defeat. (Globovision/Creative Commons)
The election will likely be a referendum on Chavez's take-no-prisoners brand of socialism in a country with the world's largest oil reserves. Capriles, a 40-year-old centrist state governor, lost to Chavez in October, but his 44 percent vote tally was the strongest by an opponent of the former Venezuelan leader who died Tuesday.
SEE ALSO: Hugo Chavez's Death Mourned And Celebrated
However, Capriles could be facing greater odds in the April election, according to Fox News Latino. A frenzy of sympathy and mourning for the dead resident could be enough to lift Maduro, Chavez's hand-picked successor, to victory.
More from Fox News:
Some say a second defeat for the 40-year-old state governor just six months after he lost last year's presidential vote to Chávez could derail his political career. If he waits, a Chavista government led by Nicolas Maduro, the acting president, might prove inept and give him a better shot down the road.
Maduro, 50, has pledged to resume Chavez's leftist policies. Opponents believe they have a chance to score a win despite the national outpouring of grief for Chavez, the BBC reported. Maduro's opponents boycotted his swearing-in on Friday, saying it was unconstitutional. Under the constitution, the speaker of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, should be the one to assume the role as acting president, they said.
SEE ALSO: Hugo Chavez's Cause Of Death Revealed
Capriles said he would attempt to duplicate Brazil's "modern left" model of economic and social policies if elected.
"The big challenge for Capriles is not to campaign against Chavez but to try to take the fight to Maduro ... trying to show the huge gap (with Chavez) and relate it to the daily problems Venezuelans face," local political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.
Read more Neon Tommy stories on Hugo Chavez here.
