CARACAS — Just months after losing his race for the presidency, Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles, may get a second shot at the top-spot and take on the anointed successor of the late Hugo Chávez.
The country will hold new presidential elections April 14, the National Election Council said Saturday. Minutes later, the coalition of opposition forces, known as the MUD, said it was unanimously backing Capriles. Although he lost to Chávez by 11 points in October, Capriles’ energetic door-to-door campaign made him a national figure and gave the battered opposition its best showing in 13 years.
If 40-year-old Capriles accepts the challenge, he will be facing Nicolás Maduro, 50, who was sworn in as interim president Friday night. Maduro, who was Chávez’s longtime foreign minster, has vowed to continue his boss’s “Socialist Revolution,” which has provided housing, education and healthcare to the nation’s poorest, even as it trampled on civil liberties.
Accredited Third StatesNewsVenezuela (Bolivarian Republic)
