The 40-year-old governor, Henrique Capriles, who would be Venezuela's youngest president, also said he would steer foreign relations away from Chavez's alliances with nations such as Iran and Belarus that the West views with suspicion.
"What do we have in common with Iran apart from producing oil? Or Belarus?" Capriles asked. "Isn't its president a dictator? You tell me! We honored (late Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi twice. Are those the relations Venezuelans want? No!"
Capriles said he would also try to sit down with Cuban President Raul Castro to review the presence of more than 40,000 Cuban workers [worth $800 million] who are in Venezuela in exchange for oil supplies [worth $4 billion].
"And I've told the Russian ambassador here that we are going to stop buying weapons from Russia," he added, referring to Chavez's multibillion-dollar arms purchases from Moscow.
