"It isn't true to say that Chávez is invincible"

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López is not waiting for the government to comply with a ruling announced Friday in his favor by the Inter-American Human Rights Court before beginning his campaign for the presidential nomination representing the opposition in next year's elections.

In its decision, the court based in San José, Costa Rica ordered Venezuela to lift a two-year-old political prohibition that was hanging over López, preventing him from running for public office until 2014. It was the sign that the 40-year-old former mayor needed to announce, as he did last Friday, that he will formally register to run in a February 12 primary, where about two dozen opposition parties of the so-called Democratic Unity movement will select their candidate to take on Hugo Chávez in October 2012.

"Justice and the law say that I am eligible, and we have already begun a nationwide tour to explain our platform," López said in an interview with EL PAÍS on Saturday from his headquarters at Voluntad Popular, the party he founded several years ago.

"It is now up to the government to find ways to apply this. The ruling states that the National Electoral Council (CNE) has to recognize my registration as a candidate for any elected office without leaving any room for doubt." The decision must be accepted in Venezuela, he said, because the 1999 Constitution states that the government must obey international rulings.

On Saturday, Chávez said the human rights court was "worthless to the left," and accused its members of siding with coup plotters who briefly ousted him in April 2002. "My haircut is worth more than that court," he said, referring to his short hair due to chemotherapy treatment.

In 2008, the comptroller general issued a sanction against López that disqualified him from holding office based on administrative findings of alleged irregularities and embezzlement of public funds, which occurred when he was mayor of the Caracas suburb of Chacao. López, who has not been convicted of any crime, has vehemently denied the charges. "There was no trial because there was no crime. I'm innocent. Do you think I would have put myself through a process of international scrutiny if I was responsible for any corruption cases?"

The CNE, meanwhile, said it will wait for the Venezuelan Supreme Court to hand down a ruling on the issue before making a decision. "We are a free and sovereign nation," Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said.

López, an economist, won his first term as mayor at the age of 27 and defines his party as a center-left "progressive movement," whose main pledge is to enforce its slogan: "All rights for all people." But Chávez supporters place him and the opposition on the most extreme right.

Voluntad Popular has about 120,000 members, which voted last July in an open election to select local and national leaders. Some critics claim that it is too small a party to win the presidential race, but López denies that. "Nobody has done what we did. There were many financial constraints and little communication, but 120,000 people turned out to vote in favor of one party and to choose not only national but also local officials."

Other critics say that López has not reached the grassroots level. "I respond to that by demonstrating what we have done: 23 percent of the people who were elected were registered with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. This indicates that we are getting people who are coming from the official ruling party."

López and other opposition candidates have pledged to unite to defeat Chávez, who, despite his cancer, says he will run for a third six-year consecutive term. "It isn't true to say that Hugo Chávez is invincible. In the last two national elections [the opposition has] achieved important victories, despite all the asymmetries and abuses of power. In the parliamentary elections of 2008, the opposition won 52 percent of the vote compared to the 48 percent the ruling party got; in the 2007 regional races, we also racked up a lot of victories."