Venezuela wraps up election campaign

Campaigning has ended in Venezuela ahead of the upcoming presidential election that will choose a successor to the country’s late President Hugo Chavez.

According to AP, supporters of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s acting president, in hundreds of thousands, swarmed the streets of the capital, Caracas, on Thursday.
Maduro told the supporters, in reference to the socialist revolution of Chavez “We, his sons and daughters, will collectively guarantee that this is the case. We swear that the revolution will continue.”
Meanwhile, Maduro’s 40-year-old rival Henrique Capriles wrapped up his campaign in the northern city of Acarigua.
Opinion polls indicate that Maduro has a lead over Capriles by more than 10 percentage points.
On April 8, Maduro vowed to fight corruption and said that he would “pursue corruption where ever it is.”
On March 25, Maduro accused political opponents of planning to sabotage Venezuela’s electricity grid and disrupt food contribution.
Speaking in an interview with the private television network Televen on March 17, Maduro also accused the Pentagon and the CIA spy agency of formulating a plot to murder Capriles in order to destabilize Venezuela.
Maduro became Venezuela’s acting president on March 8, following the death of Hugo Chavez, who lost a two-year battle with cancer on March 5.
Venezuela’s presidential election campaigns to replace Chavez formally began on April 2. The election is to be held on April 14.