The favourites for Sunday’s poll are Acting President, Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles.
About 18 million Venezuelans go to the polls this Sunday, April 14, 2013 to choose the next Head of State following the death of Hugo Chavez on March 5, 2013.
Al Jazeera TV reported yesterday, April 11, 2013 that the frontrunners are Interim President, Nicolas Maduro, 50, of late Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party, PSUV and opposition leader, Henrique Caprilles of the Democratic Unity Roundtable.
Other candidates are Reina Sequera, a union leader and former presidential candidate of the Workers' Power Party, María Bolívar, a lawyer and bakery owner for the United Democratic Party for Peace and Freedom, PDUPL, Eusebio Méndez, a pastor and candidate of New Vision for my Country, NUVIPA, Fredy Tabarquino of the Organized Youth of Venezuela Party, and Julio Mora for the Democratic Unity Party, UDEMO. At stake in the election is control of the world's biggest crude oil reserves, economic aid to a host of left-leaning governments around Latin America, and the legacy of "Chavismo" socialism.
Most opinion polls give Nicolas Maduro a strong lead over Capriles, thanks to Chavez's endorsement and the surge of grief and sympathy over his death last month, Reuters news agency said. Maduro, a former member of a rock band and a union activist, rose to be Chavez's Foreign Minister and Vice President. The former bus driver is promising to be faithful to Chavez's socialist policies. At each of his campaign events, Maduro has played a video of Chavez giving him his blessing in an emotional last speech to the nation before he died of cancer.
Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old Governor of Miranda State, says Venezuelans need a change from what he calls the divisive politics of Chavez's 14-year rule. At every rally, Capriles has rejected Maduro's claims that he plans to cancel the oil-funded social welfare projects, or slum "missions," that were the cornerstone of Hugo Chavez’s popularity with the poor. A descendant of European Jews on his mother's side, Capriles comes from a wealthy family, but has sought to project a man-of-the-people image by riding into slums on his motorbike and nearly always wearing a baseball cap.
