Venezuela: new national holiday celebrating Hugo Chavez clashes with elections Vicente Diaz, one of five members of the National Electoral Council and the only one who frequently criticizes the government, denounced Tuesday's decree. In a message posted on Twitter, he called the holiday a "rude display of electoral opportunism." "It would be a sign of weakness to yield to blackmail," he said after attending a military cannon salute to remember the eight-month anniversary of Chavez's death. While Chavez's legacy is never far from Mr Maduro's lips, the government has stepped up efforts to keep him in the public eye as it tries to manage an economic crisis that has emboldened the opposition. On Monday, the government outlined plans to create a circuit of state-funded museums, a "Chavez route," taking tourists from the former president's birthplace on the plains of Venezuela to his final resting place in the former military barracks in Caracas where he commanded a failed 1992 coup. Chavez in his final speech anointed Mr Maduro as his successor. But the former foreign minister has struggled to step out from under his mentor's shadow as 50 percent inflation, shortages of basic goods like toilet paper and a plunge in the currency to one-sixth its official value on the black market erode support for the government.