Maduro: Capriles wants to tarnish a victory that was celebrated with violence and bloodshed.

World Opera - Venezuela's interim president and official candidate for the April 14 presidential election, Nicolás Maduro, responded to statements made by Henrique Capriles just minutes after the opposition leader announced his candidacy. "He wants to tarnish a victory that was already being celebrated with violence, blood, and death," Maduro stated, adding: "We swear by Chávez and by our people that they will never return," referring to the Venezuelan elite. Capriles accused Maduro and the rest of the Chavista administration of using "the president's body for political campaigning," and also questioned the date of Hugo Chávez's death.

Maduro described the accusations as "reprehensible, deplorable" and stated that the "losing candidate"—Capriles lost to Chávez in the October 7, 2012 election—"who so despised President Chávez, came out today [Sunday], under the effects of hatred, despair, and with a very clear objective."

"Why does he act like a madman, driven mad by hatred, to justify the certain defeat he will receive? He does it because he has a calculation, dear compatriots. We have said it many times: they are provoking the sensitivity of our people to incite violence," Maduro continued.

According to him, what the opposition wants is "to destroy the peace of the Republic, to throw it into chaos; they are launching a poisoned dart at the people." Maduro said that the Venezuelan population "cannot allow their souls to be poisoned," adding that, "if they couldn't defeat the commander, neither the world nor here will succeed, they won't defeat the revolution."

The Chavista candidate for the presidential election called for calm: “Faced with hatred, sublime love. Faced with attempts at violence, peace and unity. That is what we ask of the entire country. What this losing candidate did is the most infamous and irresponsible statement we could expect in this moment of pain.” For Maduro, Capriles “showed his true face, his hatred is the hatred of those with nicknames, of this oligarchy.”

Maduro announced that Chávez's family may file lawsuits against Capriles to "defend the honor and memory of the socialist leader from the serious offenses that have been leveled against the life and death of the commander."

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The main theme of the opposition candidate's speech was to establish an antagonism between Chávez and Maduro, whom he accused of orchestrating the recent events surrounding the president's death. "Who knows when Chávez died?" he asked, implying that the president had already passed away before March 5th. "You are using the president's body for political campaigning. You had everything coldly calculated," he said.

He also questioned the authenticity of the decrees signed by Chávez during his treatment period, after undergoing surgery for pelvic cancer. Furthermore, Capriles cast doubt on the displays of emotion following the president's death by both Maduro and other members of the Chavista government.