CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez’s allies are bombarding Venezuela’s newly-anointed opposition leader with attacks ranging from the legitimacy of the primary vote to his sexuality and Jewish roots.

Auguring a rough campaign ahead of the presidential election in October, the torrent of accusations against Henrique Capriles began just minutes after his landslide win at the Democratic Unity coalition’s primary on Sunday.

With Chavez himself uncharacteristically quiet, senior officials and state media have led the attack, denouncing Capriles – a 39-year-old state governor who wants to be Venezuela’s youngest president – as a “bourgeois” and “fascist.”

“Now we know who is the candidate of imperialism, of capitalism and the right wing,” said Congress leader Diosdado Cabello, a former military comrade and longtime staunch supporter of the socialist president. “The anti-patriotic candidate has a face. He won’t have an easy election campaign.”

Capriles – the grandson of Jews who survived the World War Two Holocaust in Poland – defines himself as a center-left “progressive” who admires Brazil’s “modern left” model of free-market economics with a strong social face.

The attacks against him illustrate the election battle that lies ahead in the polarized South American OPEC member nation, where Chavez has strong support among the poor and projects opponents as representatives of a discredited, super-rich elite.

The most furious accusations have come from state media commentator Mario Silva, who often targets Chavez’s foes on his late-night show “The Razorblade” .

CARACAS (Reuters) – Even the cats and dogs love Hugo Chavez in the backstreets of La Vega.

At least that is what grateful owners joke as they line up with their pets to take advantage of the latest initiative by the socialist Venezuelan president’s network of grassroots organizations: subsidized neutering.

“If the opposition takes over, we lose all these services that Chavez has given us. We go back to zero,” said Laura De Pernalete, helping organize the sterilization program in the poor Caracas neighborhood.

“La Vega is 100 percent behind Chavez.”

The plethora of “missions” bringing services to Venezuela’s slums and impoverished rural areas – from subsidized food to Cuban-staffed health clinics – has underpinned the socialist Chavez’s popularity among the poor during 13 years in power.

He is successfully stoking fears that his signature welfare projects, such as the “Barrio Adentro” (“Inside the Slum”) healthcare network, will be dismantled should the opposition win the country’s presidential election on October 7.

Despite opposition euphoria at selecting a young and streetwise unity candidate – Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles – to fight the election, Chavez’s foes know how tough it will be to win over his loyal and passionate support base.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition primary winner Henrique Capriles on Monday exuded confidence that he can unseat President Hugo Chavez and end 13 years of socialism that foes say has left the OPEC nation in crisis.

Capriles’ campaign got off to a roaring start with an easy victory in the Democratic Unity coalition’s vote on Sunday, where high turnout of nearly 3 million showed the opposition can mobilize supporters ahead of the October 7 presidential election.

The 39-year-old center-left state governor maintained his conciliatory bid for unity in a divided Venezuela, but was more combative in criticizing Chavez’s state-driven economic model.

“The nationalizations are a complete failure, they made expropriations into a political instrument,” said Capriles on Monday during his first news conference after the primary vote.

“This is a government of retrograde leftists,” he said, insisting he seeks a Brazilian-style economy with a mix of social assistance and respect for business.

His campaign got a shot in the arm from a show of unity among losing candidates from the opposition, which for years was torn by internal rivalries that ultimately benefited Chavez.

But with Chavez riding high in polls, still popular among the poor and spending massively on welfare projects, Capriles will need to go beyond the vague promises and feel-good factor of his primary campaign if he is to unseat the president.

CARACAS, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition primary winner Henrique Capriles oozed confidence on Monday that he can unseat President Hugo Chavez and end 13 years of socialism that foes say has left the OPEC nation in crisis.

Capriles’ presidential campaign had a roaring start with an easy win in the Democratic Unity coalition’s Sunday vote where high participation of nearly 3 million showed the opposition can mobilize supporters ahead of the Oct. 7 presidential vote.

The 39-year-old center-left state governor’s bid was further bolstered by a show of unity among the losing candidates from the opposition, which for years suffered from internal disputes that ultimately benefited Chavez.

“Today the country awakes to a new political reality. The future has won,” Capriles told local TV, beaming in a dawn interview a few hours after his victory party wound up.

“It’s clear this government’s model has failed … We have a country in crisis.”

Yet with Chavez riding high in polls, still popular among the poor and spending massively on welfare projects, Capriles will need to go beyond the vague promises and feel-good factor of his primary campaign if he is to unseat the president.

His strong showing, winning 62 percent of the primary vote, will likely please investors, who react well to any news suggesting a change from Chavez’s state-centered economic model.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Mexico’s envoy to Caracas was seized overnight then freed on Monday in the latest high-profile kidnapping in Venezuela, where violent crime is routinely listed as citizens’ No. 1 worry.

In the classic style of “express” kidnappings that are rife in Venezuela, four armed men seized ambassador Carlos Pujalte and his wife in their car after a reception in the upscale Country Club zone of Caracas around midnight (0430 GMT), diplomats and officials said.

The kidnappers released the couple in a slum before dawn.

“We’re so happy he is safe, I’ve been up following the case all night,” said a senior European diplomat, whose own security has been increased in recent months.

Kidnappings, armed robberies and murders are common in the South American OPEC member nation that has enormous oil wealth alongside widespread poverty.

Venezuela’s Attorney-General’s office said a full investigation was underway.

Mexican Embassy spokesman Fernando Godinez said his boss was recovering fine after his release.

CUMANA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Teenage girls scream, fishermen fallen on hard times thrust tatty documents forward, and crowds swallow Henrique Capriles’ fist-pumping figure at chaotic stops along the Caribbean coast.

Venezuela’s young opposition front-runner is all energy as he criss-crosses the South American nation ahead of a February 12 primary likely to make him President Hugo Chavez’s challenger in this year’s presidential election.

Though he has four rivals in the Democratic Unity coalition primary, the 39-year-old state governor is well ahead in polls and already looking forward to matching the socialist president’s own pumped-up style in an October 7 duel.

“What you see here is like 1998 when Chavez ran for the first time. He didn’t have the machinery, but he did have the people,” Capriles told Reuters on a recent campaign tour, sweating from the heat at the back of a bus before his next walkabout in Cumana town.

“I’m younger than Chavez. I have an energy that he doesn’t have. He’s in a comfort zone. And you know the best thing? He thinks he can’t lose. I hope he keeps believing that.”

Chavez is in fact one of the best campaigners Latin America has ever seen: he came from behind to sweep the 1998 election and has won most of a dozen national votes since then, helped by his own charisma and tramp-the-streets style.

Yet he is nearly two decades older than Capriles and with doctors pleading him to go easy after traumatic cancer surgery last year, Chavez is unlikely to match past energy levels and may rely on more “virtual” campaigning this year via TV.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s wily President Hugo Chavez is keeping his military happy and quashing talk of succession with a reshuffle of allies to strengthen his hand as he seeks re-election in October.

Since leading a failed coup attempt in 1992 and coming from behind to win the presidency in 1998, then polarizing the nation during 13 years of socialist rule, the former soldier has always applied a favored army tactic to his politics: surprise.

So nobody foresaw his latest moves – giving the top job in Congress to a buddy from the armed forces, and ordering two senior cabinet figures who were touted as possible successors to run for governorships in opposition-ruled provincial states.

Chavez has also baited Washington by appointing a man it says is a drug “kingpin” as his new defense minister. And he has his allies currying favor and guessing at his next move by leaving unnamed two major posts: vice president and foreign minister.

“It’s the way of authoritarian rulers down the ages,” said Caracas student Claudio Fernandez, who is undecided how to vote in October. “They always move people around so that nobody becomes too comfortable and the king is unchallenged.”

Chavez’s most eye-catching move in the New Year changes was the return of Diosdado Cabello – a fellow ex-soldier who joined Chavez’s coup attempt against former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992 – to the limelight as National Assembly president.

That, along with his post as No. 2 in the ruling Socialist Party, brings back to the fore a man whom Chavez had relegated in the past amid whispers he was becoming too powerful.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez said on Friday that if an opposition candidate wins this year’s presidential election, he will be the first to recognize the rival’s victory and hand over power.

The most extreme critics of the controversial South American socialist suggest he could refuse to accept the results if he loses the ballot on October 7.

In a marathon state of the nation speech to parliament, Chavez, 57, scoffed at that and called on opposition leaders to pledge publicly to respect the outcome.

“If one of you wins the election, I would be the first to recognize it, and I ask the same of you,” he said, making a point of greeting some of his most virulent foes on his way in.

“We are going to show the world the political maturity that we have acquired in these years of democratic revolution.”

The unashamedly populist Chavez traveled from the Miraflores presidential palace to the National Assembly in the back of an open-topped limo, with bodyguards running alongside and throngs of red-clad supporters cheering as they lined the route.

This year’s election battle is shaping up to be the toughest that Chavez has faced in his 13 years in power.

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez blamed the expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat from the United States on “counter-revolutionaries” in the latest flare-up between Washington and its most prominent foe in Latin America.

President Barack Obama’s government ordered out Venezuela’s consul general to Miami last weekend after the TV network Univision aired allegations she had in the past discussed cyber-attacks on the United States with Iranian and Cuban diplomats.

But Chavez, giving his government’s first response to the case late on Monday, said that the move against Livia Acosta Noguera was “arbitrary and unjustified.”

Venezuelan intelligence had known it was coming and protectively kept her in Caracas since December, he added during a news conference with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“She is a dignified professional, attacked, slandered and demonized by that group of extremists in the United States and now by Barack Obama’s government,” he said.

Venezuela’s government says exiled nationals – who are based in the U.S. state of Florida and are bitterly opposed to the socialist Chavez government – are influencing U.S. policy towards Caracas.

“They are counter-revolutionaries, not all of them, but a little group … from the ultra-right,” he said, promising a formal response to the expulsion shortly. “It’s another demonstration of the ridiculous empire’s arrogance.”

CARACAS (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez lavished each other with praise on Monday, mocked U.S. disapproval and joked about having an atomic bomb at their disposal.

“Despite those arrogant people who do not wish us to be together, we will unite forever,” the Iranian president told socialist leader Chavez at the start of a visit to four left-leaning Latin American nations.

Despite their geographical distance, the fiery anti-U.S. ideologues have forged increasingly close ties between their fellow OPEC nations in recent years, although concrete projects have often lagged behind the rhetoric.

Ahmadinejad was in Venezuela at the start of a tour intended to shore up support as expanded Western economic sanctions kick in over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

“The imperialist madness has been unleashed in a way that has not been seen for a long time,” Chavez said in a ceremony to welcome Ahmadinejad at his presidential palace in Caracas.

Both men hugged, beamed, held hands and showered each other with praise.

As he often does, the theatrical and provocative Chavez stuck his finger right into the global political sore spot, joking that a bomb was ready under a grassy knoll in front of his Miraflores palace steps.