Chavez 'heir' Maduro steps up leadership profile

"Today, Maduro is completely different from when he was just the foreign minister: he is the vice president but he also is the handpicked successor (of Chavez) and the de facto acting president," said Luis Vicente Leon, who leads the Datanalisis pollster.

Since Chavez headed to Cuba on December 10 for a fourth round of cancer surgery since he was diagnosed in 2011, Maduro has worked on honing his skills as a higher-profile leader in his own right in this OPEC member sitting atop the world's largest proven oil reserves.

Maduro has lashed out at the opposition, Chavez-style, on national television. And he has combatively pledged to fight to defend the socialist revolution that Chavez, a leftist ex-paratrooper, launched.

"I'm sorry I have voice trouble, from working so much these days, and after a cold I had that I am not over," a weary-looking Maduro admitted at a ceremony he presided over on Friday, swearing in pro-Chavez governors from three Andean states.

Chavez,who was re-elected in October, has picked Maduro to fill in should his cancer make it impossible for the president to be sworn in for a new term on January 10.

The Venezuelan leader urged his party to support Maduro in the event of an early presidential election should he be unable to return to power.

The 50-year-old vice president, a former bus driver and union activist, "needs to validate his leadership, because it could in the near future be at issue in a political campaign," Leon said.

DataStrategia chief Carmen Beatriz Fernandez noted that Maduro has played a prominent role at swearing-in ceremonies and, in speeches, has "taken on the tone of someone who is on the campaign trail."

"He has been anointed as Chavez's heir, and now he is taking up that role actively. He is preparing himself for a presidential election in the near future," she added.

Maduro has pumped up the sarcasm, much like his boss, echoing the president's joke that the opposition coalition has "disbanded" and become "cosmic dust" -- by winning only three of 23 state governorships while the ruling party picked up four states.

The vice president still feels the need to tread carefully on the issue of taking over the helm.

"I am just a vice president. We have a president who is on duty and his name is Hugo Chavez Frias... There is no interim government. Nor have any powers been handed over," he shouted to supporters in Tachira.

Leon said that nevertheless Maduro has dropped his once "moderate" profile to make heavy use of words like "bourgeoisie" and "imperialism," references to Chavez's twin foes of wealthy Venezuelans and the United States, which he has often used as scapegoats to fire up crowds of mostly poor supporters.

"Maduro used to look much more moderate, calmer but now he seems to be imitating Chavez's role, and trying to be more belligerent," Fernandez said.

Chavez, 58, is due to be sworn in for a third presidential term next month, but the nation is on tenterhooks to see whether the health crisis will prevent the outspoken leader from remaining president.

However, National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello urged Venezuelans Saturday not to be fixated of the date of January 10 when the searing-in ceremony is scheduled to take place.

Responding to multiple queries about what would happen if Chavez fails to show up at the National Assembly on January 10, Cabello insisted that "the date of January 10 does not determine the president-elect's absolute absence."

According to the speaker, if intervening circumstances prevent the president from showing up on January 10, the constitution allows him to be sworn in before Supreme Court justices.

And, Cabello added, the constitution "does not say when and where" this kind of inauguration should take place, giving some currency to rumors that the justices could be flown to Havana, if Chavez were unable to return to Caracas.

"Commandante Hugo Chavez will continue to be our president," the speaker concluded.

The face of the Latin American left for more than a decade and a firebrand critic of US "imperialism," Chavez asserted before embarking on his arduous re-election campaign earlier this year that he was cancer-free.

But he was later forced to admit he had suffered a recurrence of the disease. He returned to Cuba, a key Venezuelan ally, for surgery and follow-up treatment.