CARACAS (Reuters) – Acting President Nicolas Maduro vowed on Monday to stamp out corruption following days of accusations by his election rival Henrique Capriles that ruling party officials were plundering Venezuela’s oil wealth.

Corruption has been a perennial problem in the country and was a primary campaign issue for the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez when he was first elected in 1998. His death from cancer last month triggered the April 14 election.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Gripping the wheel and grinning at passengers, acting President Nicolas Maduro drives a bus to campaign rallies before an election he hopes will let him steer Venezuela to six more years of hardline socialism.

From banners all around him, the image of the man Maduro calls his “father,” the late Hugo Chavez, beams beatifically and salutes.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Acting President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday that Venezuelan authorities had arrested several people suspected of plotting to sabotage one of his campaign rallies before an April 14 election by cutting the power.

Both sides have accused the other of dirty tricks during a bitter run-up to the vote to choose the successor to late socialist leader Hugo Chavez. Opinion polls give Maduro a double-digit lead over his opposition rival, Henrique Capriles.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Moments after he registered to run in Venezuela’s April 14 election, acting President Nicolas Maduro vowed to go on foot, unarmed, into the toughest slums of Caracas and ask the gangs there to lay down their guns.

Both Maduro and his opponent, Henrique Capriles, have clashed over a top campaign issue: the daily murders, armed robberies and kidnappings that make the South American country one of the most dangerous in the world.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s acting president urged U.S. President Barack Obama to stop what he called a plot by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to kill his opposition rival and trigger a coup ahead of an April 14 election.

Nicolas Maduro said the plan was to blame the murder on the OPEC nation’s government and to “fill Venezuelans with hate” as they prepare to vote following the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

CARACAS, March 17 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s acting president
urged U.S. leader Barack Obama to stop what he called a plot by
the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to kill his
opposition rival and trigger a coup before an April 14 election.

Nicolas Maduro said the plan was to blame his opponent’s
murder on the OPEC nation’s government and to “fill Venezuelans
with hate” as they prepare to go to vote following the death of
socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

CARACAS, March 15 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s post-Chavez oil
policy will increasingly focus on deals with China and Russia if
acting President Nicolas Maduro wins an April 14 election to
continue his late boss’s socialist programs.

During his 14 years in power, Hugo Chavez nationalized most
of the OPEC nation’s oil industry with the aim of putting its
crude reserves – the biggest in the world – at the service of
his power base, Venezuela’s poor majority.

CARACAS, March 14 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition leader
challenged acting President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday to “stop
lying” and have a debate, adding that he was sorry if he had
caused offense during the increasingly bitter run-up to an April
14 election.

The death last week of socialist leader Hugo Chavez set the
stage for the vote pitting Maduro, his preferred successor,
against Henrique Capriles, a 40-year-old centrist state
governor.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s acting president said on Wednesday that “far right” figures in the United States were plotting to kill opposition leader Henrique Capriles in an increasingly volatile atmosphere ahead of an April 14 election.

Accusations are flying and emotions are running high in the South American OPEC nation of 29 million people since the death last week of former socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

CARACAS (Reuters) – From Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Oscar-winner Sean Penn, an eclectic mix of mourners bid farewell on Friday to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez at a state funeral for the charismatic but divisive leader who changed the face of South American politics.

Chavez died this week at age 58 after a two-year battle with cancer, devastating millions of mostly poor supporters who hailed him for plowing Venezuela’s vast oil wealth into social projects, but giving hope to foes who decried him as a dictator.