Chavez to be embalmed 'like Lenin' and laid in museum
Leader's body will be preserved in revolution museum 'for eternity', as next acting president prepares to announce elections after funeral
Venezuelans flocked to see president Hugo Chavez lying in state, as his political heir revealed he would be embalmed "like Lenin" and displayed in the barracks where he plotted a failed coup.
As people streamed in to pay their respects in a military academy, officials put the transition in motion, announcing that vice-president Nicolas Maduro was to be formally sworn in as acting president late yesterday and would "call for elections".
But the farewell to Chavez was also extended, with Maduro saying the public viewing period would last at least seven more days after yesterday's scheduled state funeral with world leaders.
The former paratrooper, whose socialist revolution delighted the poor and infuriated the wealthy, will be embalmed "like Ho Chi Minh, Lenin and Mao", and be kept in a glass casket to be seen "for eternity", Maduro said last Thursday.
Maduro said the body would be taken to the "Mountain Barracks" in the "January 23" slum that was a bastion of Chavez support, which was being converted into a Museum of the Revolution.
It was there that Chavez spearheaded a coup against president Carlos Andres Perez on February 4, 1992. Chavez's arrest turned him into hero, leading to his 1998 election victory.