Capriles mocks "skin-deep" socialists before Venezuela vote

By Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate tore into government leaders on Wednesday as false revolutionaries lining their pockets while professing faith to the late Hugo Chavez's radical socialism.

Trailing in opinion polls ahead of the April 14 vote, Henrique Capriles is attacking acting President Nicolas Maduro and other senior officials as a corrupt and incompetent coterie unable to solve Venezuelans' basic problems.

"They talk of socialism, but it's on the surface only. Look how those well-connected ones live, what they wear, what cars they go round in, how many bodyguards they have," Capriles said.

"They are skin-deep socialists only. Their behavior, I'd say, is savage capitalism. They love traveling. During Easter, they were all off to La Orchila," he added, referring to a military-run island in the Caribbean off Venezuela.

The 40-year-old state governor is trying to persuade voters that rival candidate Maduro is a far cry from Chavez, who died of cancer a month ago.

But passions are still running high over Chavez's death, Maduro is presenting himself as the president's "son" and "apostle," and "Chavista" supporters are largely expected to obey their beloved leader's dying wish to support Maduro.

Nevertheless, Capriles' attack on Wednesday went to the heart of a common complaint from rank-and-file "Chavistas" that senior officials are out of touch with the people's problems, and too concerned with feathering their own nests.

"My fight is against the corrupt ones," Capriles added, in an unusual meeting with leftist supporters in Caracas before flying to a mass rally in Chavez's rural home state of Barinas.

Perpetuating the class rhetoric common during Chavez's 14-year rule, Maduro and his supporters attack Capriles daily as a "little bourgeois" who is a puppet of Venezuela's wealthy elite and their friends in the United States.

Maduro, 50, is a former bus driver who rose to become Chavez's vice president, while Capriles, 40, comes from a wealthy family with extensive business interests.

"The prince of New York has his bags packed," Maduro told a rally in the western Andean state of Tachira on Wednesday, referring to a recent visit by Capriles to the U.S. city.

"Where did he get the money to have a mansion in New York?" Maduro added. Capriles aides say a plush apartment he recently stayed in there belongs to a relative, not him.

VISION OF CHAVEZ?

The opposition candidate, who has governed populous Miranda state since 2008, said his record on building schools and anti-poverty measures showed his credentials for the top job.

"One ruling party leader said to me, 'Capriles, a single finger of yours is more revolutionary than the whole body of the candidate they have imposed on us,'" said Capriles, referring to a recent visit to the coastal town of Punto Fijo.

"Our people should open their eyes and wake up ... What we have is bad leaders who have no idea how to resolve problems."

Opinion polls give Maduro a formidable lead of between 11 and 20 percentage points over Capriles, but some analysts think the gap could narrow before election day.

On the campaign trail, Maduro has lacked the charisma of his former boss, but he has covered himself in Chavez symbols.

This week, sitting in the garden of the humble rural home where Chavez grew up, Maduro even said Chavez had appeared to him in the form of a little bird that flew above his head and sang to him while he was praying in a chapel.

"I felt his spirit, like a blessing, saying 'the battle starts today, onward to victory, you have my blessing.'"

He repeated the story at Wednesday's rally, condemning the mockery from opposition supporters that his tale had provoked.

The "little bird" story has gone viral in Venezuela.

"God forgive them their bad ways and hatred," Maduro said.

As well as working-class credentials that play well with loyal "Chavistas" and the late president's personal blessing, Maduro has a well-financed state apparatus behind him.

He also has the goodwill of millions who have benefited from Chavez's oil-funded welfare programs, or "missions."

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves.

Capriles, who calls himself a "progressive" and has mainly center-left views and policy proposals, wants to follow Brazil's model of free markets with strong social welfare protection.

"They will never return!" Maduro thundered to the crowd in Tachira on Wednesday. "This victory will be for Chavez ... I am here out of commitment to him, not because of personal ambition or because I represent a little bourgeois group."

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition alleged that a joint audit of the voting system by both sides had revealed the ruling Socialist Party had a confidential code to open 45,000 electronic polling machines and could use that to sabotage results.

Government officials said that was "slander" intended to prepare the ground for fraud allegations on election day, and that the code anyway was only used for maintenance of machines.

There was no comment from election authorities.

(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne; Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Eric Beech)

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Venezuela opposition chief mocks Chavez heir as non-entity

By Andrew Cawthorne

CIUDAD BOLIVAR, Venezuela (Reuters) - Fighting an uphill battle in Venezuela's election, opposition leader Henrique Capriles scoffs at acting president and rival Nicolas Maduro as a non-entity riding on the memory of Hugo Chavez to hide his own incompetence.

In an interview on his campaign bus on Tuesday, Capriles also accused the late president's chosen heir Maduro of trying to distract voters from real problems with wild claims including a U.S.-based plot to kill the opposition candidate.

"Nicolas does not even reach the ankle of President Chavez," Capriles told Reuters, comparing his battle for the upcoming April 14 vote with last year's presidential poll against Chavez.

"Nicolas' biggest weakness is that it seems he doesn't even exist, the only thing you see in the campaign is the image of the president (Chavez) ... Nicolas is just not up to it."

With sympathy over Chavez's death from cancer this month galvanizing government supporters, Maduro, 50, a former bus driver and long-time socialist stalwart, is favorite to win leadership of the South American OPEC nation next month.

Capriles, 40, is determined to stop that by both attacking Maduro's personal capacity and highlighting the plethora of grassroots problems that irritate Venezuelans, ranging from potholes and crime to power cuts and corruption.

The Miranda state governor, a centrist politician who admires Brazil's free-market economics with strong welfare policies, lost to Chavez last year by 11 percentage points.

NOSTALGIA FOR CHAVEZ

But his showing then was the strongest against Chavez during the late president's 14-year socialist rule.

"I was boxing against Cassius Clay! Now I'm facing another boxer, it's a different game," said Capriles, changing out of a sweat-soaked shirt as his bus wended its way through the crowd after a rambunctious rally in southern Ciudad Bolivar.

"I'd have liked to go back up against the same athlete. Sadly, by God's decision, the president died."

Maduro and other government officials accuse Capriles of dishonoring Chavez's memory and offending his family with accusations that they lied over the details of his final days.

A top strategist on Maduro's team forecast this week that Chavez supporters will punish Capriles for his anti-government barbs and that next month's vote will likely end up in a bigger win for the socialists than last year.

Asked about Maduro's accusation that two former U.S. officials plotted to assassinate Capriles, the opposition leader first reeled off a litany of problems facing Venezuelans, from violent crime and shortages of products to rising prices and shoddy roads.

"Nicolas has been in government for 100 days. They look like the worst 100 days of these 14 years," he said in a typical put-down of his rival, using his first name.

"And what does he talk about? A plot. He wants us to talk about (former U.S. official Otto) Reich, and those things. He doesn't want us to talk about what's important on the street for Venezuelans. That's why I don't pay those claims any attention, they are smokescreens."

Capriles said that Maduro, who now describes himself as an "apostle" of Chavez and often addresses the nation alongside images of his late boss, was part of a discredited group whom even 'Chavista' voters would punish at the presidential poll.

Supporters seldom held Chavez personally responsible for their daily problems, often blaming senior officials instead.

"For followers of the president, it was the ministers who were the corrupt, inefficient, incompetent ones who did all the damage. Well, that's the group wanting to govern," Capriles added in the first interview with foreign media of his campaign.

UPHILL FIGHT

Two opinion polls published this week gave Maduro a lead of more than 14 percentage points.

Most analysts believe Capriles faces a near-impossible task to win, especially given the state's superior campaign resources, the popularity of its many social welfare programs, and the high number of 'Chavistas' in most state institutions.

"The electoral conditions, the abuses, are worse than before," Capriles said, accusing Maduro of acting unconstitutionally by not leaving office while he campaigns.

"Our struggle is more difficult but more heroic, more challenging ... It's a divine, spiritual struggle. I believe God gave us an opportunity to unite the country," said Capriles, a devout Catholic who always wears a crucifix.

The government counters Capriles' depiction of the election as a David vs Goliath fight with its own version - that he is in fact the representative of Venezuela's moneyed, right-wing elite in league with U.S. and other Western "imperialist" interests.

Hoarse but pumped during frenetic campaigning in the vast and mineral-rich southern state of Bolivar, Capriles said there was a limit to how much the emotion over Chavez's death would help Maduro at the ballot box.

"Chavez was Chavez. Nicolas is not Chavez. And the president's supporters are realizing that. They don't like Nicolas," Capriles said.

"I have to fight and try to win. There is a real possibility of winning ... My fight is with the liars and the corrupt ones."

If he wins, Capriles promises to roll back gradually the Chavez-era socialist economic measures, including currency controls and nationalizations that cowed the private sector.

"If I win, I'm sure the profile of Venezuelan debt will improve a lot. Loans will be less costly. I have to reconstruct the economy, generate confidence," he said.

"(Finance Minister Jorge) Giordani is unable to recognize his failure. His economics are from another century. He should go on a course in Brazil, Chile, Peru, or Mexico. Send him to China for a month so they can train him," he laughed.

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Claudia Parsons)

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