Venezuelans filed past the open casket of late President Hugo Chavez as he lay in state on Thursday after throngs of weeping loyalists gave the firebrand leftist a rousing farewell on the streets.
As Venezuelans began three days of goodbyes, an election to succeed Chavez loomed, after the curtain came down on a 14-year socialist presidency that heightened class tensions in the oil-rich South American nation.
Hundreds of thousands waved flags and chanted “Chavez lives” as his hearse crawled across the capital Wednesday in a seven-hour trip from the hospital where he died to the academy he once called his second home.
