Strongmen weep as they bid Chavez adios Some of the world's most notorious strongmen have wept openly at the lavish state funeral of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leftist whose revolution won him friends and foes at home and abroad. Venezuelan conductor and Los Angeles Philharmonic maestro Gustavo Dudamel led a rendition of the national anthem to open the ceremony on Friday as Chavez lay in state in a flag-covered coffin after a 14-year reign. Chavez's political heir, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, placed a replica of the golden sword of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar on his mentor's wooden casket as more than 30 heads of state applauded. Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus sat next to each other, wiping away tears as a band played one of Chavez's favorite sentimental songs, typical from his native land. Several Latin American leaders, including Cuban President Raul Castro, were invited to stand around the coffin, which was closed and covered in the yellow, blue and red colours of Venezuela, in an honour guard. As well as alliances with a motley crew of anti-Western autocrats, Chavez had also built friendships with some Hollywood stars, including Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, who attended the funeral. Chavez's body will lie in state for seven more days and officials said his body will be embalmed and preserved "like Lenin" to rest in a glass casket in the military barracks where he plotted a failed coup in 1992. Venezuela is giving Chavez a long farewell, with hundreds of thousands of people filing past his open casket nonstop since Wednesday. Though popular among the nation's poor, his policies alienated the upper-middle class. Maduro was due to be sworn-in as acting president later on Friday pending elections. But the opposition, which is gearing up to challenge Maduro in upcoming elections, said it would boycott the event. Deputy Angel Medina of the Democratic Union Roundtable, an umbrella grouping of opposition parties, branded the hasty inauguration "another electoral act and a violation of the Venezuelan constitutional order."