Venezuela scrambles for Chavez replacement

Venezuela was plunged into a bitter election fight to succeed Hugo Chavez, with acting President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles facing off in a flurry of name-calling. Thousands of the late president’s supporters massed outside the National Election Council as Maduro, dressed in a jacket in the colors of the Venezuelan flag, officially registered his candidacy. Venezuelans will vote in snap April 14 elections after a brief campaign that analysts say heavily favors Maduro, who Chavez picked as his successor in his last public appearance before going to Cuba for cancer surgery in December. Wearing red berets and T-shirts emblazoned with Chavez’s image, his supporters vowed loyalty to the deeply polarizing socialist revolution that the former army paratrooper championed during his 14 years in power.


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