Capriles supporters rally in streets of Caracas

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A general expectation that Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor will win next weekend's presidential election didn't dim the spirits of more than 100,000 backers of challenger Henrique Capriles, who jammed the capital's center on Sunday.

Most of the people who converged by foot in the city center on a hot, sunny afternoon tried to shrug off forecasts of victory for Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president after Hugo Chavez died March 5 following a long battle with cancer.

Capriles said the big turnout in the capital was evidence that he'd win at the ballot box next Sunday.

"Today the streets of Caracas were filled with happiness, today the streets of Caracas were filled with hope, today the streets of Caracas confirm what's going to happen," Capriles said.

Chavez had defeated Capriles in October, but by the slimmest margin of his 14-year tenure as president.

Maduro, who rose from bus driver and union organizer to foreign minister under Chavez, is expected to benefit from an emotional outpouring of solidarity among Chavistas who have benefited from the generous social welfare state he created under the socialist banner.

But many critics contend that Maduro has been saddled with a fiscal hangover due to heavy Chavez spending ahead of October's vote.

Jesus Barroso, a 52-year-old retiree, said he believes Maduro will win handily next Sunday. But he predicted Maduro would not be able complete the six-year term because economic and social woes would prompt Venezuelans to remove him through a recall.

"I don't think he'll last very long in the presidency," Barroso said.

Supporters of Capriles chanted anti-government slogans and waved red, yellow and blue Venezuelan flags as they converged on a main avenue in downtown Caracas, where the 40-year-old governor of central Miranda state, was scheduled to speak.

Upbeat demonstrators danced to music sound trucks, which blasted "Fresh Lie," a newly composed song by Puerto Rican salsa musician Willie Colon that pokes fun at Maduro.

Capriles has repeatedly accused Maduro of failing to resolve pressing problems including frequent power outages, crumbling infrastructure, shortages of basic foods and double-digit inflation, and supporters say Capriles can do better.

"He's capable of offering opportunities to get us out of this disaster," said Maria De Llano said of Capriles, noting that she has difficulty finding some medicines and foods such as coffee, sugar and chicken due to sporadic shortages.

Meanwhile, Maduro invoked Chavez during a rally in the southern state of Apure, telling his backers that "El Comandante" is watching over them from Heaven.

"He's protecting us," said Maduro, speaking as if Chavez were omnipresent.

Indeed, images of Chavez seem to be everywhere in Venezuela. His smiling face is posted on billboard along highways. State-run television channels regularly broadcast footage of his speeches.

And Maduro's campaign organizers set up loudspeakers that play sound bites of Chavez's voice at rallies.

A recent poll by the independent polling firm Datanalisis showed Capriles trailed Maduro 49 percent to 35 percent in a sampling of 800 voters from March 11-13. The poll, with 16 percent of respondents undecided, had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Venezuela's political divisions spill into streets

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Under a three-story-tall banner blaring "You are all Chavez," Jose Rafael Hernandez crouched low with a can of spray paint, outlining on a wall a black heart and the words "And long live Chavez..."

He and his three-man crew had already sprayed some 20 murals over the past week all over the "23 de enero" slum where support for the late President Hugo Chavez, their "Comandante," remains rock solid even after his death Tuesday. Dozens of other graffiti crews have also been at work, showing their allegiance in slogans and murals on countless doorways and walls.

"This is how we keep Chavez alive," said Jorge Luis Gonzales, a state bank accountant overseeing Hernandez's graffiti crew. "This is going to continue because the elections are coming, and the Comandante needs a big surprise. The opposition has their own graffitists, and we have ours."

Nearly a week after Chavez's death, Venezuelans have shown no signs they're ready to lower the rhetorical temperature. In fact, the national obsession with politics has only intensified as Venezuelans gear up for April 14 elections pitting Chavez successor Nicolas Maduro against opposition candidate Gov. Henrique Capriles.

All over this gritty capital built amid rolling hills, evidence of more than a decade of political warfare over Chavez and his socialist legacy is everywhere, from murals and billboards to even the T-shirts and caps worn by people in the city's chaotic streets.

In the eastern half of Caracas, which has long been known as an opposition stronghold, neighborhoods exploded in fireworks and car-honking Sunday night when Capriles launched his candidacy by accusing Maduro of using Chavez's death for political gain.

On the back of a barbecue shack in the neighborhood of Marquez, a mural with orange-and-yellow flames pleaded "Something Different!" while Capriles' youthful face looked out of graffiti stenciled here and there on surrounding blocks. Chavez images were conspicuously absent.

"I'm thinking that we'll have continuity for three years, more or less, and then real democracy will come," predicted Jose Garnica, a business owner reading the newspaper in a park bench.

He said the government had seized an apartment building he owned in the city center to house poor families and had only offered to pay him a pittance for it. He is still fighting to receive full compensation.

"This population is split 50-50," Garnica said, "and the government has fooled much of the poor here. What we need now is a change of government, not a socialist government but a democratic one."

For Jose Escobar, the plan for the future should be exactly more Chavez. Dressed in the late president's trademark red, he was drinking beers with fellow true believers in a plaza covered with graffiti images of the late president, despite a ban on public alcohol consumption during seven days of mourning.

"We will live and we will fight!" Escobar pledged, echoing a phrase used often by Chavez during his battle with cancer. "All the social programs must continue."

To be sure, the government has worked hard to keep the political fever high, as it rallies behind Maduro's candidacy.

Graffiti artist Reynaldo Rodriguez, who was helping Gonzales, said they had received paint and other materials directly from an army colonel to paint pro-Chavez slogans all over the slum, a violation of a constitutional ban on the military from engaging in politics. Banners pledging loyalty to Chavez hang from dozens of public housing towers and government buildings, while the displaying of Chavez's embalmed body in the army's military academy has turned into a running celebration filled with folk bands and thousands of weeping adherents.

"The government has been very clear and up-front that the media strategy is extremely important," said David Smilde, a senior fellow and Venezuela expert with the think tank the Washington Office on Latin America. "The exposure on Chavez has been very dramatic, trying to keep that sense of him being omnipresent."

Yet not everybody was pledging eternal battle.

Venezuela's bright yellow, red and blue flag has been flying at half-mast all over the capital, from improvised flagpoles set up on bare-brick huts in pro-Chavez slums, as well as on the manicured lawns of middle-class apartment towers in opposition-dominated neighborhoods.

Some Venezuelans said they were exhausted from all the attacks and counter-attacks, while others who had spent years criticizing Chavez said they mourned the man.

In a small, dimly lit salon in the working-class neighborhood of San Juan, Chavez backers Elle Coba and Darly Gomez laughed with unemployed teacher Joanna Machado even though she minced no words about her distaste for Chavez.

Coba lauded the food programs, schools and free public housing Chavez had launched across the country. She was wearing an armband and several hair scrunchies emblazoned with the flag's colors in honor of her Comandante.

Gomez joined in the praise, though she opted for orange-and-black spandex.

"All governments have their mistakes, but Chavez has tried to make our lives better," she said. "He's contributed and done things our nation has never done before."

Then, Machado had her say.

"I am not a supporter of their policies, which they've used many times to keep themselves in power," Machado said. "They haven't done anything about jobs, which is what everyone needs. We have so many problems that need to be solved."

Coba hugged both women.

"I wish there were no fights, and everyone respected the ideology of everyone else," she said. "Poor, rich, we are all together in this."

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