Venezuela candidate slams Chavez\'s Nazi accusations

Venezuela\'s leading opposition candidate -- whose grandmother is a Holocaust survivor -- on Tuesday slammed President Hugo Chavez\'s accusations that he is tied to Nazi groups. It was the latest in a series of intensely personal exchanges in the brutally negative campaign, in which the youthful Henrique Capriles hopes to deny Latin America\'s most prominent leftist a third six-year term. \"I heard a statement from the candidate, Chavez, trying to link me to Nazi groups,\" Capriles said at a press conference. \"So I would like to ask (Chavez) not to respect me but my great-grandparents, buried somewhere in the world after being killed by the Nazis.\" \"My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor,\" said the former governor of the country\'s northern state of Miranda. Capriles, a Catholic, comes from a family of Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors who emigrated to Venezuela. On a tour of a petrochemical plant Monday, Chavez said his administration has evidence that Capriles belonged to a \"fascist\" organization of wealthy families implicated in \"neo-Nazism.\" Capriles hopes to defeat Chavez in the October 7 presidential election. Capriles, 39, said Venezuela deserves a \"debate of the highest respect\" in the race for the presidency. \"A political campaign does not need to lower itself into a swamp. (Chavez) has no idea what Nazism or fascism are,\" Capriles said. Throughout his campaign, Chavez has referred to Capriles as \"bobo\" (stupid) and \"majunche\" (not much).