Summary Venezuelans will vote in the presidential election on Sunday after Hugo Chavez death.
CARACAS (AFP) - With Hugo Chavez casting a religious-like shadow, Venezuelan voters will choose Sunday between his handpicked successor Nicolas Maduro, who sees himself as the late leftist leader s "apostle" and an opponent vowing change.
The presidential election will cap a quick but bitter campaign that pitted Maduro, the acting president, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles in a nation divided by Chavez s oil-funded socialist revolution.
Anointed by Chavez as his political heir, Maduro is favored to complete the deceased leader s six-year term. He has cast himself as his mentor s "son" while promising to defend Chavez s popular health, education and food programs.
One month after Chavez died, many of his supporters vow to fulfill the last wish of their charismatic "comandante."
The phrase "Chavez, I swear, my vote is for Maduro" is recited in songs and rallies, printed on T-shirts and street walls.
While the late president lifted millions of people out of poverty, his successor will inherit a country beset by South
America s highest murder rate, with 16,000 homicides last year, and a fragile economy.
Maduro, a former bus driver and union activist who rose to foreign minister and vice president under Chavez, enjoyed leads of as much as 20 percentage points over Capriles in opinion polls.
The most recent survey by the Datanalisis polling firm, published Thursday by Credit Suisse bank, gave him a 9.7-point lead. The poll was conducted between April 1-5.
"Maduro did not win over new followers, though he wasn t looking for new ones. He is presenting himself not as a candidate, but as a vehicle for Chavez and his legacy," said Luis Vicente Leon, director of the Datanalisis polling firm.
The two candidates closed their campaigns with huge rallies on Thursday, with Maduro tearfully pledging to be the "president of the poor" before throngs of followers in Caracas.
During the campaign, Maduro adopted Chavez s bombastic rhetoric, calling Capriles a "little bourgeois" while alleging that former US officials were conspiring to assassinate him. He drew the opposition s ridicule by saying that Chavez s spirit had visited him in the form of a bird.
While Chavistas pledge their vote for Maduro, many warn that they will not hand him a blank check.
"Chavez was the Robin Hood of Latin America and we will continue fighting so that Maduro will continue his legacy," said Mauro Lopez, 45, an oil rig operator at the state-run firm PDVSA.
Capriles, the energetic 40-year-old governor of Miranda state, is running in his second presidential election in six months after losing to Chavez by 11 points in October -- the opposition s best result against the socialist leader.
While he has promised to continue Chavez s social "missions," Capriles wants to cut the government s deal with Cuba in which Caracas ships 100,000 barrels of oil per day while Havana sends doctors and other experts to Caracas.
"Make no mistake, next Sunday is time to open a new cycle and change this situation," Capriles, who is offering a business-friendly alternative modeled after Brazil s center-left policies, said at his last campaign rally late Thursday.
