Venezuela parades Chavez’s coffin through the streets

CARACAS, Venezuela — Throngs of weeping supporters carried the flag-draped coffin of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez on Wednesday, as the South American country bade farewell to the firebrand leftist who led them for 14 years.

The day began with soldiers firing a 21-gun salute from various barracks across the country.

Then tens of thousands flocked to line the route between the military hospital, where Chavez spent his final two weeks, and the military academy, where his body will lie until an official funeral Friday.

Chavez's mother Elena Frias wept over his wooden casket as a band played the national anthem outside the military hospital. Presidential guards with red berets then placed his remains on top of a black hearse, surrounded by flowers.

Chavez's hand-picked successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, walked alongside the car through dense crowds, wearing a somber expression and a striking outfit in the color of the national flag.

The news Tuesday of Chavez's death after a two-year struggle with cancer was a blow to his adoring supporters and the alliance of left-wing Latin American powers, and plunged his oil-rich country into uncertainty as an election is organized.

People watched from their apartment windows, others climbed fences to get a better view of the hearse, many held or wore iconic images of Chavez.

There has been no news yet of a date for the election, which must be called within 30 days of Chavez's death. The vote will likely pit Vice President Maduro against opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Many analysts expect Maduro will win.

On the sidelines of Wednesday's procession, some of the crowds created a surprisingly jovial atmosphere. Signs read, "Now more than ever, we are with Chavez." The same songs that play throughout election campaigns and official rallies blared on.

People seemed to be looking forward.

"I came here to support our most honorable, humane, most cordial president," said Carlos Avila, 53.

"He had a heart. He’s done so much for us. He changed the constitution so it benefitted the poor. He began health programs for the poor," he added.

Avila also seemed confident Maduro, now Venezuela's 50-year-old acting president, will remain the country's leader.

"Maduro’s our candidate because our president called on the people to tell them that Maduro would continue the revolution," he said. "If the Comandante says so, I believe it 100 percent."

Chavez's death brought thousands of Venezuelans to public squares across the country, weeping and celebrating the life of a divisive figure whose oil-funded revolution delighted the poor and infuriated the wealthy.

Hundreds of people spent the night in front of his hospital, waving Venezuelan flags and chanting "We are all Chavez!" A banner was hung on the hospital fence, reading "Chavez lives, the battle continues!"

"I love him," said Iris Dicuro, 62, who came from the northeastern city of Puerto La Cruz and wore a shirt with the words "Forward Comandante." "I want to bid farewell because he was a good man who gave everything to the poor."

But not everyone in a country divided by Chavez's populist style agreed, with opposition supporters in better off neighborhoods still angry.

"Hate and division was the only thing that he spread," 28-year-old computer programmer Jose Mendoza told AFP in an eastern Caracas opposition bastion. "They want to make him a martyr. It made me laugh.

"He did a lot of social things, but he could have done much more. He also did a lot of harm because there are no institutions, there is no justice. He mistreated everyone who disagreed with his government."

The armed forces were to fire a 21-gun salute and "there will be a salvo every hour until his burial," Defense Minister Diego Molero said.

Some of Chavez's closest allies had already arrived Wednesday ahead of the state funeral, including Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner, Uruguay's Jose Mujica and Bolivia's Evo Morales.

Maduro said the nation's security forces had been deployed but Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said calm reigned in Venezuela, which was rocked by a short-lived coup against Chavez in 2002.

Venezuela's closest ally, communist Cuba, declared its own mourning period for a leader who helped prop up the island's economy with cheap fuel and cash transfers, and dubbed Chavez a "true son" of revolutionary icon Fidel Castro.

More from GlobalPost: Many Latin Americans are in mourning

But US President Barack Obama — often a target of Chavez's anti-American scorn — was circumspect, pledging the United States would support the "Venezuelan people" and describing Chavez's passing as a "challenging time."

Shortly before Chavez's death was announced, Maduro expelled two US military attaches and accused Venezuela's enemies of somehow afflicting the leftist with the cancer that eventually killed him.

Chavez was showered with tributes from Latin American leaders and Russia, China and Iran also paid tribute to a man who had cultivated close ties with the bugbears of the West as a way of thumbing his nose at Washington.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Chavez had fallen "martyr" to a "suspect illness," while hailing his close ally for "serving the people of Venezuela and defending human and revolutionary values."

And beleaguered Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad took time off from attempting to crush a revolt against his brutal rule to dub Chavez's death "a great loss for me personally and the Syrian people."

Chavez had checked into the hospital on February 18 for a course of chemotherapy after spending two months in Cuba, where in December he had undergone his fourth round of cancer surgery since June 2011.

A new election could offer another shot at the presidency to Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader who lost to Chavez in October but insisted Tuesday that the two men were "adversaries, but never enemies."

Luis Vicente Leon, director of the polling group Datanalisis, said the government will likely want to hold elections as early as possible "to take advantage electorally of the emotion generated by the president's death."

Chavez died five months after winning re-election, overcoming public frustration over a rising murder rate, regular blackouts and soaring inflation.

He missed his swearing-in for a new six-year term on Jan. 10, but the Supreme Court approved an indefinite delay.