Venezuelan Acting President Nicolas Maduro said that a centuries-old curse would fall on the heads of those who do not vote for him in next week’s election to pick a successor to late leader Hugo Chavez.
Maduro’s invocation of the “curse of Macarapana” was the latest twist in an increasingly surreal fight between him and Opposition Leader Henrique Capriles for control of the South American Opec nation of 29 million people.
“If anyone among the people votes against Nicolas Maduro, he is voting against himself, and the curse of Macarapana is falling on him,” said Maduro, referring to the 16th-century Battle of Macarapana when Spanish colonial fighters massacred local Indian forces.
Wearing a local indigenous hat at a rally in Amazonas state, a largely jungle territory on the borders of Brazil and Colombia, Maduro compared Capriles and the opposition coalition to the enslaving Spanish occupiers.
“If the bourgeoisie win, they are going to privatise health and education, they are going to take land from the Indians, the curse of Macarapana would come on you,” he added.
Calling himself the “son” of Chavez, Maduro has more than a 10-point lead in most polls, although Capriles supporters are predicting a late pro-opposition surge as sympathy wears off from the former President’s death a month ago.
Capriles, 40, a state Governor, says Venezuela needs a fresh start after 14 years of Chavez’s hardline socialism, and is vowing to install a Brazilian-style administration of free-market economics with strong social policies. He ridiculed Maduro’s latest speech: “Anyone who threatens the people, who tells the people a curse can fall on them, has no right to govern this country,” he said at a rally in western Tachira state. “I tell you here, all Venezuelans, the real curse is that little group that we are going to get rid of on April 14.”
The opposition leader also continued to mock Maduro’s twice-told story of having seen the spirit of Chavez in a bird that flew over his head and sang to him last week.
Venezuela’s mix of Catholic and animist beliefs, especially in the south-central plains and jungles, is fertile ground for references to spirits and curses.