Venezuela: Opposition says government broke election law | BBC

The Venezuelan opposition has made an official complaint against the government following allegations that it broke the law by continuing its electoral campaign on state television. On the eve of the election, acting President Nicolas Maduro appeared on TV visiting the tomb of Hugo Chavez. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles said his opponent was “violating all the electoral norms”. On Saturday, he launched an internet channel to broadcast his own campaign. Despite this, he said he had been “respecting the electoral rules, but those in power don’t know anything other than the abuse of power”. Almost 19 million Venezuelans will have the right to vote on Sunday for a successor to Hugo Chavez. Voting will be electronic – one machine will identify voters’ fingerprints, and a second will recognise identity card numbers and register the vote anonymously.

Editorials: Venezuela’s Upcoming Election Won’t Be Any Fairer Than the Last One | The Atlantic

Venezuela’s first post-Chavez presidential election, taking place on April 14, has the unfortunate likelihood of suffering from the same shortcomings of the contest that occurred when Chavez was re-elected this past October: the vote was neither free nor fair but extraordinarily distorted by incumbent advantages and political intimidation. On October 7, Hugo Chavez was re-elected to a fourth term by a decisive margin, with 55 percent of the vote. In power since 1999, and emboldened with six-year terms and the right to indefinite reelection as a result of constitutional changes they forced through, the chavistas, now represented by Chavez’s anointed successor, Nicolas Maduro, appear as firmly entrenched as ever. Last October, the opposition candidate in next month’s contest, Henrique Capriles, mounted the most serious electoral challenge to Chavez since he assumed power, uniting disparate opposition forces, attracting many disillusioned former backers of Chavez, and giving hope to Venezuela’s youth in particular. If there had been a reasonably level playing field or an electoral climate free of the pervasive fear that Chavez’s forces provoked, Capriles might well have won the presidency. The April contest will be a rematch on the same unlevel playing field. Thus, it is unlikely that Capriles will secure the presidency.

Venezuela: Interim president Nicolas Maduro claims “US wants to kill me because | will win” | Latin America News

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that US officials Roger Noriega and Otto Reich were behind the plan, together with right-wing sectors from El Salvador and Venezuela, and had paid the “mercenaries” to kill him. Venezuelan government officials released a recorded conversation on Saturday that allegedly reveals the use of “mercenaries” by the Venezuelan opposition to create chaos in the lead up to elections next Sunday. Interim President Nicolas Maduro made the announcement at a campaign event on Saturday, assuring that the group of “mercenaries” were already in Venezuela, and are seeking to carry out three objectives before next week’s elections: sabotage the electrical grid, increase the number of murders in the country, and assassinate Maduro.

Venezuela: Plots and sabotage: Chavez candidate spins conspiracy theories ahead of Venezuelan election | The Washington Post

Salvadoran mercenaries are plotting with Venezuela’s opposition candidate to assassinate interim President Nicolas Maduro. But wait, the plot thickens. Central American agents, along with former U.S. diplomats, are also plotting to kill the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles. Those are just two of the conspiracy theories that Maduro has put forth ahead of Sunday’s election to replace Hugo Chavez. Maduro, who is running as Chavez’s hand-picked successor, also says the government has launched an investigation to determine if someone — U.S. agents, he has hinted — inoculated Chavez with the cancer that killed him March 5.Opposition leaders called the allegation laughable, but government officials insist it’s no joke. Such conspiracy theories don’t seem all that wild to some Latin Americans who resent decades of U.S. meddling in their affairs. In Venezuela, relations with the U.S. deteriorated after Washington briefly endorsed a coup that toppled Chavez for two days in 2002.

Venezuela: Candidate Maduro puts curse on rival voters | BBC

The acting president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has put a curse on citizens who do not vote for him in next week’s election. He likened his main rival candidate, Henrique Capriles, to Spanish conquerors fighting indigenous people in the 16th Century. A centuries-old curse, he said, would fall on those who did not vote for him. Mr Capriles responded by saying the only curse for Venezuelans would be if Mr Maduro won the election. The country goes to the polls next Sunday to elect a successor to Hugo Chavez, the long-time leftist leader who died of cancer last month. Opinion polls suggest Mr Maduro, who was Chavez’s deputy, has a lead of at least 10 points over his rival.

Venezuela: Interim president claims opposition is sabotaging power grid ahead of election | The Washington Post

Interim President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday charged that allies of Venezuela’s opposition are sabotaging the country’s power grid ahead of this month’s presidential election. Maduro ordered the military to safeguard power stations across the country to prevent sabotage ahead of the April 14 vote pitting him against opposition leader Henrique Capriles. “I have ordered the militarization of all the country’s electricity facilities and elaboration of a special protection plan,” Maduro told supporters at a campaign rally in the city of San Carlos. Maduro said government adversaries have infiltrated Corpoelec, the state-run power company, and he announced that some of its employees would be investigated for allegedly cooperating with opposition groups bent on sabotaging the grid. “Those employees who are conspiring against the people will go to jail,” Maduro said.

Venezuela: Venezuela faces ‘undemocratic’ vote: election official | Global Post

Venezuela has a transparent voting system but the election to replace late leader Hugo Chavez will be “deeply undemocratic” because the government candidate has an unfair advantage over the opposition, a member of the electoral body said. Vicente Diaz, known as the dissenting voice on the five-member National Electoral Council (CNE), told AFP that it was impossible for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles to have as much media visibility as Chavez’s chosen successor, acting President Nicolas Maduro. “If we look at the national electoral eco-system, we stand before a deeply undemocratic election because the basic principle is that the candidates participate in equal conditions, and this is not the case,” Diaz said. Speaking on Tuesday, the day the campaign for the April 14 election formally kicked off, Diaz pulled out a local newspaper and showed a page with a Capriles campaign ad and another one for Maduro financed by the ruling PSUV socialist party. The daily, however, contained eight more pages of Maduro ads paid for by the government.

Venezuela: Ghost of Chavez dominates Venezuela election campaign | Reuters

Weeks after his death, Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez still leads supporters in singing the national anthem. The late president’s recorded voice booms over rallies for his protégé, acting President Nicolas Maduro, who stands under billboards of Chavez’s face and waves to crowds carrying signs emblazoned with his name. Maduro, who is favored to win a snap election triggered by Chavez’s death last month, rarely misses a chance to lionize the man many Venezuelans know as “El Comandante.” “All of the prophecies of Hugo Chavez, the prophet of Christ on this earth, have come true,” intoned Maduro at a rally celebrating the anniversary of the former president’s release from jail for leading a failed 1992 coup. “In eternity, or wherever you are, you must be proud because you left our people the greatest inheritance of all: a free and independent nation on the path toward socialism,” he said of the man loved by supporters as a savior but excoriated by adversaries as a dictator.

Venezuela: Capriles cries foul ahead of election | AFP

Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles accused acting president Nicolas Maduro of unfairly using state media and money in his campaign to succeed the late Hugo Chavez. The accusations come two weeks before voters choose a new president following the death of Chavez, the flamboyant leader who governed oil-rich Venezuela for 14 years and launched a self-styled leftist “revolution.” “The state media have become a propaganda wing of a political party,” Capriles alleged, referring to the socialist party of Maduro, Chavez’s handpicked successor. In free and fair balloting, candidates are supposed to have the same access and the same rights, Capriles told a press conference. But Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, is relying on “all of the state’s resources … and all of the state’s power structure” to run his campaign, Capriles charged.