Willie Colon

A general expectation that Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor will win next weekend's presidential election didn't dim the spirits of the tens of thousands backers of challenger Henrique Capriles, who jammed the capital's center on Sunday.Most of the people who converged by foot in the city center on a hot, sunny afternoon tried to shrug off forecasts of victory for Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in as acting president after Hugo Chavez died March 5 following a long battle with cancer.Chavez had defeated Capriles in October, but by the slimmest margin of his 14-year tenure as president.Maduro, who rose from bus driver and union organizer to foreign minister under Chavez, is expected to benefit from an emotional outpouring of solidarity among Chavistas who have benefited from the generous social welfare state he created under the socialist banner.But many critics contend that Maduro has been saddled with a fiscal hangover due to heavy Chavez spending ahead of October's vote.Jesus Barros...

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