Venezuelan presidential aspirants set to begin race

Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonsky was to begin his campaign on 2 April, hoping a second time - and against the odds observers believe - to take the presidency on 14 April, this time from an Acting President and heir to the late Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro Moros. Capriles said on 29 March that he would begin campaigning in the state of Barinas south west of Caracas, where the presidential party also began its campaign on 30 March. Maduro spoke at a rally that day in the city of Barinas, a day after Capriles toured coastal districts of the state of Falcón where he was pictured waving at beach-goers from a boat in the district of Tucacas, Globovisión reported. He told the press that Venezuela needed a national government so people "who think differently can live better, so there are no blackouts like here" in Falcón. His campaign he said would be a "spiritual battle" against "lies, and fresh lies this time. Venezuela needs a government that works with the truth...there are two candidates here, the candidate of truth against the candidate of lies, and that is Nicolás." The Information Minister Ernesto Villegas termed the "Hate Commando's" decision to start campaigning in Barinas a "provocation," writing on the website Twitter on 29 March that Capriles was copying Maduro's earlier decision to campaign there and even his route, the state's AVN agency reported. Maduro told supporters in Barinas on 30 March that Capriles was a "little bourgeois who hates us and envies President Chávez," and keen to "start a campaign of violence" from Barinas. "I have proof of what they are planning, and they have decided to enact the first act of violence on Tuesday in Barinas. That is why the little bourgeois decided to come and provoke the people of Barinas and start an electoral campaign" with a "message of hate," El Nacional cited Maduro as saying. Capriles will have to overcome the use the government will make of lingering grief for Chávez, which Maduro compared on 30 March to the Apostles' grief for Jesus Christ when he died. Maduro also presented himself as the moral candidate opposed to the "anti values" bequeathed by capitalism, El Nacional and Globovisión reported. If young girls "prostitute themselves" in Venezuela he said, it was "because they kept giving us, for years and years, the culture of prostitution in...soap operas and television series" from the United States.