Capriles supporters rally in streets of Caracas

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  Partidarios del candidato presidencial opositor Henrique Capriles lo aplauden durante un acto de campaña en Maracay, Venezuela, 4 de abril de 2013. Venezuela elegirá al sucesor del difunto presidente Hugo Chávez el 14 de abril. (AP Foto/Fernando Llano)The Associated Press

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  Supporters of Venezuela's interim President Nicolas Maduro cheer during campaig rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April 5, 2013. The presidential election to replace Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is scheduled for April 14. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)The Associated Press

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  A sign poking fun of ruling party presidential candidate Nicolas Maduro is seen during an opposition campaign rally ahead of next week end's presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, April 7, 2013. Tens of thousands of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles backers converged on a main avenue in downtown Caracas for Sunday's rally. The writting reads in Spanish "from my heart, fresh lies."(AP Photo/Enric Marti)The Associated Press

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  Opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles greets supporters as he campaigns in Maracay, Venezuela, Thursday, April 4, 2013. Capriles says he'll cut off subsidized oil to Cuba, distance his country from nations that disrespect human rights and shore up the South American country's own troubled economy with the billions it now sends abroad to socialist friends. The challenger also predicted more tough times ahead for oil-rich Venezuela if acting president and ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro wins the April 14 election. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)The Associated Press

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  Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles cheer as they wait for the arrival of Capriles for a campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, April 7, 2013. Capriles is running against ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro in next weekend's presidential election.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)The Associated Press

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CARACAS, Venezuela –  A general expectation that Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor will win next weekend's presidential election didn't dim the spirits of the tens of thousands 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.

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, noting that she has difficulty finding some medicines and foods due to sporadic shortages.

Meanwhile, Maduro invoked Chavez yet again 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," Maduro said. "Chavez, we are with your love ... We are not going to let you down."

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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Henrique Capriles to repeat run as opposition candidate in Venezuela election

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles announced Sunday night that he will run in elections to replace Hugo Chavez, setting up a make-or-break encounter against the late president's hand-picked successor.

Capriles slammed the government in his announcement for using Chavez's death to push the candidacy of Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in as acting leader Friday. He also called top military brass an "embarrassment" for publicly supporting Maduro, although the constitution forbids the military from taking political sides.

"Don't fool yourselves that you're the good and we're the bad," the 40-year-old candidate said to the government. "No, you're no better than us. I don't play with death. I don't play with pain."

Capriles, who is governor of Venezuela's biggest state, also acknowledged that he faces tough odds against an official candidate in control of vast public resources who he said has the backing of the country's electoral commission.

"As one person said today, `Capriles, they are taking you to a slaughterhouse. Are you going to be lowered into its meat grinder?"' Capriles said.

He said, however, that he had to fight for the whole country.

"How am I not going to fight?" he said. "How are we not going to fight? This is not Capriles' fight. This is everybody's fight."

In some districts of the capital, people launched fireworks, shouted and honked horns as Capriles announced he would run.

Capriles also laid out what could be main themes of his campaign, bemoaning high crime and poverty as well as the government's decision to devalue the currency by more than 30 percent.

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello sent a response on his Twitter account: "Capriles, you messed with Chavez and with the profound love that the people feel for the Commander of the Fatherland, you made a declaration of war."

Venezuela's election commission has set the vote for April 14, with formal campaigning to start just 12 days earlier.

Maduro has already announced his intention to run as the candidate of Chavez's socialist party. On Sunday he also picked up the support of Venezuela's small communist party. He's expected to file election papers on Monday.

In a speech accepting the communist party's nomination, Maduro insisted he was running for president out of loyalty to Chavez, not vanity or personal ambition, and called on the people to support him. Chavez chose him as vice president after winning re-election October.

"I am not Chavez," Maduro said, wearing a simple red shirt. "In terms of intelligence, charisma, historical force, or capacity to lead. ... But I am a Chavista and I live and die for him."

Opposition critics have called Maduro's ascension unconstitutional, noting the charter designates the National Assembly president as acting leader if a president-elect cannot be sworn in.

Capriles faced a stark choice in deciding whether to compete in the vote, which most analysts say he is sure to lose amid a frenzy of sympathy and mourning for the dead president.

Some say a second defeat for Capriles just six months after he lost last year's presidential vote to Chavez could derail his political career. But staying on the sidelines would have put in jeopardy his leadership of the opposition.

Analysts predict the next five weeks will see a spike in the nasty, heated rhetoric that began even before Chavez's death Tuesday after a nearly two-year fight with cancer.

Political consultant Oswaldo Ramirez, who is advising the Capriles campaign, said the candidate must strike a balance between criticizing the failures of Chavez's government and Maduro's role in it, without being seen as attacking the late president.

"He can't speak badly of Chavez, because this feeling on the street is still in full bloom," Ramirez said.

Public opinion was as divided as always Sunday in a country that became dramatically more polarized during Chavez's 14-year rule.

"It's not fair," said Jose Mendez, a 54-year-old businessman of the choice the opposition leader faces. "(Maduro) has an advantage, because of everything they have done since Chavez's death, all the sentiment they've created ... But the guy has nothing. He can't hold a candle to Chavez."

But Ramon Romero said the opposition was just making excuses, and had no chance of victory in any case.

"Now their odds are even worse," said the 64-year-old waiter and staunch Chavez supporter. "They don't care about anyone, and we (the voters) have been lifted out of darkness."

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