UPDATE 3-Venezuela election race starts, sources say Capriles to run

* New presidential election set for April 14
* Acting president Maduro hopes to succeed Chavez
* Opposition's Capriles to run - sources

(Adds comments from Maduro, government camp)
By Andrew Cawthorne and Marianna Parraga
CARACAS, March 10 (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader
Henrique Capriles will challenge the late Hugo Chavez's
preferred successor for the presidency of the South American
OPEC nation next month, sources said on Sunday, setting the
stage for a bitter campaign.
Capriles will face election favorite and acting President
Nicolas Maduro. The pair have until Monday to register their
candidacies for the April 14 vote.
The election will decide whether Chavez's self-styled
socialist and nationalist revolution will live on in the country
with the world's largest proven oil reserves.
Capriles, 40, a centrist state governor, will formally
announce his decision to run later on Sunday, two sources in his
camp said.
"There's a lot of negativity around. It's going to be tough,
but we're going to do it," one of the sources told Reuters.
"Henrique's made his decision. He's not backing down."
Former vice president Maduro, 50, a hulking one-time bus
driver and union leader turned politician who echoes Chavez's
anti-imperialist rhetoric, is seen winning the election
comfortably, according to two recent polls.
Maduro pushed for a snap election to cash in on a wave of
empathy triggered by Chavez's death on Tuesday at age 58 after a
two-year battle with cancer. He was sworn in as acting president
on Friday to the fury of Capriles.

Capriles, the youthful Miranda state governor who often
wears a baseball cap and tennis shoes, lost to Chavez in
October. But he won 44 percent of the vote - the strongest
showing by the opposition against Chavez.
Capriles has accused the government and Supreme Court of
fraud for letting Maduro campaign without stepping down.
Although the ruling Socialist Party is favored to win,
opposition supporters are trying to raise their spirits.
"There's no reason to think that the opposition is condemned
to defeat," Teodoro Petkoff, an anti-government newspaper
editor, said on his Sunday morning talk show.
Maduro has vowed to carry on where Chavez left off and
ratify his policy platform. He acknowledged he has big shoes to
fill.
"I am not Chavez - speaking strictly in terms of the
intelligence, charisma, historical force, leadership capacity
and spiritual grandeur of our comandante," he told a crowd on
Saturday.
Chavez was immensely popular among Venezuela's poor for
funneling vast oil wealth into social programs and handouts.
The heavy government spending, along with currency
devaluations, has contributed to annual inflation of more than
20 percent, hurting consumers.
"Maduro's success will depend on if he can fix the economy
and its distortions," said a former high-level official in the
Chavez government who declined to be named. "If he does that, he
could emerge as a strong leader instead of one who is an heir."

DIFFICULT RACE
Maduro's first official meeting on Saturday was with
officials from China, who Chavez courted to provide an
alternative to investment that traditionally came from the
United States.
He has adopted his mentor's touch for the theatrical,
accusing imperialists, often a Chavez euphemism for the United
States, of killing the charismatic but divisive leader by
infecting him with cancer.
Emotional tributes were paid at a religious service at the
military academy housing Chavez's casket on Sunday, where people
continued to gather.
Chavez railed against the wealthy and scared investors with
nationalizations. In heavily polarized Venezuela some in the
well-to-do class toasted his death with champagne.
Venezuela's opposition coalition backed Capriles as its
candidate on Saturday. Capriles says, if elected, he would copy
Brazil's "modern left" model of economic and social policies.
Given the state resources at Maduro's disposal and the
limited time for campaigning, Capriles faces an uphill battle.
"If the opposition runs, they'll lose. If they don't run,
they lose even more!" tweeted Andres Izarra, who served as
information minister under Chavez.
The opposition rank-and-file is heavily demoralized after
losing last year's presidential race and getting hammered in
gubernatorial elections in December, stoking internal party
divisions.
"There's no doubt that it's an uphill race for Capriles,"
local political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said. "Maduro is not
Chavez. ... (But) the trouble is that given the race is so close
to Chavez's death, emotions get inflamed and the candidate
probably continues to be Chavez rather than Maduro.
"The big challenge for Capriles is not to campaign against
Chavez but to try to take the fight to Maduro ... trying to show
the huge gap (with Chavez) and relate it to the daily problems
Venezuelans face."

(With reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez, Simon Gardner, Terry
Wade, Pablo Garibian, Deisy Buitrago, Mario Naranjo and Enrique
Andres Pretel)