Venezuela's Capriles: Maduro won't last

Venezuela's Capriles: Maduro won't last
FABIOLA SANCHEZ and JAMES ANDERSON, Associated Press
Updated 4:21 pm, Friday, April 5, 2013

MARACAY, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate
says he'll cut off subsidized oil to Cuba, distance his country from
nations that disrespect human rights and shore up the South American
country's own troubled economy with the billions it now sends abroad to
socialist friends.

Henrique Capriles also told The Associated Press in an interview that he
will seek better ties with Washington — always strained under the late
President Hugo Chavez — but will demand respect from U.S. leaders, who
he says have neglected Latin America.

And the challenger predicted more tough times ahead for oil-rich
Venezuela if acting president and ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro
wins the April 14 election. He called Maduro incapable of governing this
polarized nation and said its wealth of economic problems ultimate would
force Maduro to resign or be forced out.

"Whatever the outcome, I don't see how Nicolas Maduro has the capacity
to stay for an extended time in government," Capriles asserted after
staging a rock-star-like rally late Thursday in the central coast city
of Maracay, traditionally a Chavista stronghold.
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"He will have to resign, abandon (the presidency) if he's able to win,"
Capriles said.

He did not elaborate on what would come, but in the back of many
Venezuelans' minds is the unrest and violence that accompanied a brief
2002 coup against Chavez and a prolonged, opposition-led general strike
against Chavez in 2003-2004.

Capriles, governor of Venezuela's most populous state, is waging a
desperate campaign to unseat Maduro, who was foreign minister and vice
president to Chavez and became acting president before Chavez died March
5 of cancer. Capriles lost to Chavez in an October election, but again
is cross-crossing the country to rally supporters.

The abbreviated campaign has been marked by personal insults as Capriles
insists Maduro is no Chavez, still beloved by millions. Capriles has
tried to reassure voters he won't take away their state social programs
while promising to address high crime, high inflation, nagging food
shortages and recurring power outages.

Maduro's campaign strategy is to incessantly invoke Chavez, who tapped
Maduro as his successor. He warns voters their social programs are at
risk if Capriles wins, accuses foes of conspiring to destabilize the
country and promotes his ties to an armed forces politicized by Chavez.

Exactly one month to the minute after Chavez's death, Maduro, members of
Chavez's family and government officials paid tribute to the late
president at the Caracas army barracks that hosts Chavez's tomb. Cannon
shots were fired and taps played, followed by a remembrance mass.

Capriles previously had announced he had spoken with commanders he
didn't identify about possible Cabinet posts. On Thursday, he said he
believed most of Venezuela's 200,000 soldiers don't support Defense
Minister Diego Molero's public endorsement of Maduro, an endorsement
that violated Venezuelan laws that mandate the military's impartiality.

Capriles vowed to stop financing other nations with cheap oil and to
redirect Venezuela's oil riches toward solving its own poverty. One of
his first acts as president, he said, would be to expel Cuban military
advisers from Venezuela's armed forces.

"We are giving to the Castro brothers' government ... nearly $4 billion
a year," he said. "Because of that, the Castros love the possibility
that this government remains."

The government stresses that in exchange for oil, Cuba has dispatched
thousands of doctors and nurses who provide free medical attention in
poverty-stricken areas that historically lacked services. Capriles has
said previously he'd send the doctors home.

Capriles said he'd quickly chill ties with Iran and Syria that Chavez
boosted.

"We have to take a look at the affinity we have toward Iran, beyond our
shared interest as oil producers. There is none," he said. "With the
Syrian government, there is none."

Venezuela has sent several shipments of diesel fuel to Syria's embattled
regime.

"My political orientation is for democracy, not these authoritarian
governments where human rights are trampled upon," Capriles declared.

The candidate said he wants better relations with Washington, but on an
equal footing. Chavez frequently accused the United States of trying to
unseat him, and Maduro has suggested it somehow injected Chavez with cancer.

Washington briefly embraced Chavez's ouster in the 2002 coup. The two
countries haven't exchanged ambassadors since 2010. In March, Washington
expelled two Venezuelan diplomats after Caracas expelled two U.S.
military attaches for allegedly trying to turn Venezuelan soldiers
against their government.

"I believe the United States has been erratic in its relationship with
Latin America. It's made mistakes," Capriles said.

"I had big expectations of President Obama, that Obama was going to
reach out to the South," he said. "The United States doesn't take into
account the South's importance, and it must change the way it relates"
to Latin America.

"We sell oil to the United States and we buy products from the United
States," Capriles continued. "These are the huge contradictions of this
(Maduro) government — it talks and it talks, yet it even imports
gasoline from the United States."

Capriles blamed Maduro, as interim president, for a devaluation of
Venezuela currency that weakened citizens' buying power. He also blamed
Maduro, and Chavez before him, for frequent power outages, 23 percent
inflation and rampant crime.

Capriles dismissed some polls that suggest Maduro, bolstered by enduring
empathy for Chavez and a massive state elections machine, will win handily.

"Of course I can win," he said. "The act of voting is a rational, and
emotional, act. I feel that that emotion is on this side. Maduro lacks
charisma and leadership, he said.

As for Chavez' popularity rubbing off on his hand-picked successor,
Capriles said "I don't believe in hereditary leadership."

Capriles' own charisma was on full display at a boisterous rally in
Maracay's central boulevard before the AP interview — a 10-block display
of passion among thousands that nearly resulted in disaster.

Whipped up into a near-frenzy by speaker after speaker over a waiting
period of three hours, mobs pushed through successive security barriers
until, by the time Capriles launched into his stump speech, dozens were
crushed against a fence, struggling to breathe, the old and young alike
crying and pleading for help.

Several people climbed building railings to escape the crush. Capriles'
security detail pulled people from the crush. Crying children were
separated from their parents; emergency personnel administered oxygen to
a man prone on the ground. Dozens were taken for medical treatment.

When it was over, one of Capriles' aides found a wedding ring on the
ground. She shook her head.

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