Venezuela's opposition leader joins presidential race Henrique Capriles has confirmed that he will be the opposition coalition's candidate in Venezuela's upcoming presidential election. Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Sunday that he will challenge the late Hugo Chávez's preferred successor for the presidency next month, setting the stage for a bitter campaign. Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, will face election favorite and acting president Nicolás Maduro. The pair have until Monday to register their candidacies for the 14 April vote. The election will decide whether Chávez's self-styled socialist and nationalist revolution will live on in the country. "I am going to fight," Capriles said at a news conference. Nicolás, I am not going to give you a free pass. You will have to beat me with votes. Former vice-president Maduro, 50, a one-time bus driver and union leader turned politician who echoes Chávez's anti-imperialist rhetoric, is expected to win the election comfortably, according to two recent polls. Maduro pushed for a snap election to cash in on a wave of empathy triggered by Chávez's death last Tuesday at the age of 58 after a two-year battle with cancer. He was sworn in as acting president on Friday to the fury of Capriles. "You have used the body of the president for political campaigning," Capriles said of Maduro. Capriles, the centrist Miranda state governor, lost to Chávez in October, but won 44% of the vote, the strongest showing by any opposition against Chavez. Capriles has accused the government and supreme court of fraud for letting Maduro campaign without stepping down. Although the ruling Socialist party is expected to win, opposition supporters are trying to raise their spirits. "There's no reason to think that the opposition is condemned to defeat," Teodoro Petkoff, an anti-government newspaper editor, said on his Sunday talk show. Maduro has vowed to carry on where Chávez left off and ratify his policy platform, and acknowledged he has big shoes to fill. "I am not Chávez - speaking strictly in terms of the intelligence, charisma, historical force, leadership capacity and spiritual grandeur of our comandante," he told a crowd on Saturday. Chávez was immensely popular among Venezuela's poor for funneling vast oil wealth into social programmes and handouts. Heavy government spending and currency devaluations have contributed to annual inflation of more than 20%, hurting consumers. Maduro's first official meeting on Saturday was with officials from China, whom Chávez courted to provide an alternative to investment that traditionally came from the United States. He adopted his mentor's touch for the theatrical, accusing imperialists, often a Chávez euphemism for the US, of killing the charismatic but divisive leader by infecting him with cancer. Emotional tributes were paid at a religious service at the military academy housing Chávez's casket on Sunday, where people continued to gather. Venezuela's opposition coalition backed Capriles as its candidate on Saturday. If elected, Capriles says he would copy Brazil's "modern left" model of economic and social policies.