CARACAS, Venezuela: A huge crowd filled the streets of Venezuela’s capital on Sunday cheering for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, waving flags in a show of support one week before the country’s hotly contested presidential election.
Capriles waved from a truck that rolled through the vast expanse of supporters. The crowd overflowed from Bolivar Avenue, the widest downtown thoroughfare, which according to some estimates has a capacity to hold about 260,000 people. The authorities didn’t provide a crowd estimate.
“Bolivar Avenue is too small for us,” Capriles shouted to the crowd, which was the largest of any opposition gathering in recent years.
While President Hugo Chavez led a rally with tens of thousands of supporters in western Zulia state on Sunday, authorities were investigating the killings of two men in a shooting that erupted elsewhere during an opposition campaign caravan on Saturday.
Capriles condemned the killings in western Barinas state.
“On Oct. 7 we’re going to defeat violence in Venezuela,” Capriles said. “Our country is tired of the violence, of the division, of the confrontation. ... The time of hatred is going to be buried in Venezuela.”
Chavez also lamented the violence, calling for his supporters not to “fall for provocations” at election time.
“I ask all Venezuelans, it’s not with violence that we’re going to face each other. It’s vote against vote,” Chavez said.
Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said in a message on Twitter that a suspect was arrested in the killings, but he didn’t immediately identify him.
Violence has erupted previously during the campaign for the Oct. 7 vote, but these were the first deaths.
Chavez rallied thousands of supporters during weekend street events in Guarenas, a town east of Caracas, and in western Zulia state.
Yusneidy Rondon, a 26-year-old student, shouted with emotion and danced in the street after getting close enough to hand Chavez a letter.
“Chavez forever. ... I love him!” gushed Rondon, who said that in her letter she had asked the president to provide her with a computer, just as she now enjoys free university tuition.
“It’s impossible for us to lose,” Chavez said at Saturday’s rally in Guarenas. The crowd chanted: “Ooh, Ahh, Chavez won’t go!”
Chavez confident of win in violence-hit elections
