HUGO SHAVEZ APAMBANA KUZUIA TONGE MDOMONI.

Rais wa Venezuela Hugo Shavez akiwapungia mkono wafuasi wake kwenye mkutano wakampeni akijiandaa kupambana kutetea nafasiyake hiyo ya Urais aliyodumunayo kwa miaka 14 sasa. Shavez (54) anakabiliwa na upinzani mkali hasa kutokana na haliyake ya afya kutokuwa nzuri kutokana na kushambuliwa na maradhi ya saratani ya kichwa.

Wafuasi wa Rais wa Venezuela ambae anatetea nafasi yake ya Urais kwenye uchaguzi unaotarajiwa kufanyika hivi karibuni wakifurahi kwenye mkutano uliofanyika kwenye mji wa Monagas juzi. Photo AFP.

VENEZUELA is gearing up for its closest presidential poll in more than a decade. The revolutionary incumbent, Hugo Chávez, is battling cancer and fighting for his political life. A telegenic young challenger from the centre-right, Henrique Capriles, is gaining ground. With one week left, one voter  the hatmaker of Caracas – weighs up the options.

For half a century Juan Torres has provided hats for Venezuela's heads of state. Earning little more than the minimum wage, he shaped the panama owned by the "father of democracy", Rómulo Betancourt, when he took power in 1958, the borsalino of the centrist leader Jóvito Villalba, and the stetson donned by Luis Herrera Campíns, who presided over an era of economic decline in the early 1980s.

Now he is watching with a professional eye as a nation decides whether the revolutionary red beret that has been the trademark of Chávez, 58, during his 14 years in power will be replaced by the baseball cap of Capriles.

With just a week until polling day, most forecasters predict a narrow victory of between three and five points for the incumbent. But the gap has been closing, with many voters undecided and the huge turnouts for opposition rallies providing more momentum for Capriles, who is 40, than many analysts would have believed possible.