Caracas - AFP
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).