VENEZUELA: Main opposition candidate Henrique Capriles shrugs off reports by President Hugo Chavez of assassination plot against him

Record ID: 567145

  • Title: VENEZUELA: Main opposition candidate Henrique Capriles shrugs off reports by President Hugo Chavez of assassination plot against him
  • Date: 21st March 2012
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 5th April 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2P7YDFFLI6M8EVLVNKP16XBW
  • Story Text: Venezuela's opposition leader Henrique Capriles dismissed on Tuesday (March 20) a government warning of an assassination plot against him that further stirred up an already volatile election campaign.
    President Hugo Chavez made the surprise announcement on Monday evening, implying that elements within the opposition were behind a plan to kill Capriles, the 39-year-old Miranda state governor who is challenging him in an October 7 election.
    The latest development adds to a nervous and polarized atmosphere across the South American OPEC member, which the socialist Chavez has dominated for 13 years, but Capriles tried to play down the rumours.
    "Yesterday, somebody said on television that there was information they were preparing an attack on me. And if you want me to tell you honestly, one doesn't know if it's a warning or a threat. One doesn't know how to interpret it. Because when you are have a position so important like running a country, you have to speak in the language of peace," Capriles said from Miranda.
    The governor, who is the candidate of the Democratic Unity coalition that groups the country's main opposition parties, dismissed an offer from Chavez of state protection.
    "It's not about offering me security. When one governs, he must offer security to all the people who one serves. That's what makes the difference," the opposition politician said.
    Shots were fired during one Capriles campaign stop in Caracas earlier this month, and officials from Chavez down have pilloried him as a "pig," "bourgeois" and a "little Yankee."
    Capriles said he wouldn't let the new rumours intimidate him.
    "Look, I'm not scared. I'm a person with courage. I'm not afraid and I'm not going to let those words intimidate us," he added.
    Capriles, a centre-left politician who hails Brazil as his model, said the assassination talk was a distraction from daily problems that trouble Venezuelans, such as a violent crime rate that is among the worst in the world.
    Chavez said the plot had not come from government supporters, but rather from among criminal destabilizers linked to the opposition itself.
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