ALL eyes are on Caracas, capital of Venezuela, as leaders from around the world gather in the city for Friday’s state funeral of the late President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez died on Tuesday, aged 58, at a military hospital in the capital city after battling health complications associated with cancer.
Nicolas Maduro, the late president’s hand-picked successor would also be sworn-in as interim president on Friday, in a transition that is expected to be a smooth one.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who often referred to Chavez as his brother, was joined in the Venezuelan capital by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Cuban President Raul Castro.
Although late Hugo Chavez was last seen in public about three months ago, just before he underwent his fourth surgery in Cuba, up to two million people may get a glimpse of the man who elicited strong reactions from friends and enemies alike in his country.
The late Venezuelan leader’s embalmed body will lie in state in an open casket at the Military Academy in the Caracas, after which it will be publicly displayed at the military museum for at least a week. This is to enable Venezuelans to get a glimpse of their leader.
The government will consider the possibility of giving Chavez a final resting place at the National Pantheon, alongside 144 dignitaries – including Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar, whom Chavez claimed as his ideological father.
On Thursday, presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Evo Morales of Bolivia and Jose Mujica of Uruguay paid their respects at the academy.
55 foreign heads of state or foreign ministers would attend the funeral.
Parliament was due to meet after the funeral for Maduro’s swearing-in.
But the opposition has said that Maduro could not become caretaker president while running for president in elections due within a month.
Some constitutional experts believe the parliament speaker, Diosdado Cabello, should become president.
But Cabello said on Thursday that the constitution was “very clear on what needs to be done, which is not anything else than swearing in Nicolas Maduro.’’
Maduro would then call elections within 30 days, Cabello said.
Maduro is widely expected to win the presidential election.
The opposition has not yet announced his challenger.
Many analysts have hedged their bets on Henrique Capriles Radonski, who lost to Chavez in October.
Chavez’s fourth term would have started on Jan. 10, but at the time he was undergoing treatment in Cuba.
The government bases its decision on a ruling by the Supreme Court, which said in January that Chavez’s government could stay in power even if the president had been too ill to be sworn-in after winning elections.