Venezuelans at polls to elect Chavez successor

For the second time in six months, Venezuelans are going to the polls. Back in October, they re- elected a dying President Hugo Chavez. This time around it's between his belatedly hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro, who's been acting President, and Henrique Capriles, the re-elected Governor of Miranda State. Listen to this report from correspondent James Blears:

Some 18.9 million Venezuelans are registered to vote in almost 14,000 polling stations. More than 3,000 observers are seeing fair play is done while 240 international observers are also scrutinizing.

Maduro who's fifty, is vowing to continue Chavez's socialist legacy. While Capriles who's 40, says it's time for Venezuela to change direction and better use its vast oil wealth. He's pledging he won't cut generous and badly needed social benefits programs for the poor.

Opinion polls have shown Maduro in the lead and the question is whether he'll maintain that?
Infrastructure in Venezuela is chaotic, crime is rampant and tackling it is a huge and vital challenge.

It's up to the people to decide who's best qualified to tackle these enormous looming challenges.