Hugo Chavez's handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, was sworn in as acting president of Venezuela late Friday in a disputed inauguration boycotted by the main opposition group.
"I swear in the name of absolute loyalty to comandante Hugo Chavez that we will obey and defend this Bolivarian Constitution with the hard hand of the free people," Maduro said in a ceremony at the National Assembly.
The Supreme Court backed the inauguration and ruled that Maduro could run for office, a ruling that opposition leader Henrique Capriles deemed "fraudulent."
Mr Capriles says that the government was committing fraud by going ahead with the swearing-in of Nicolas Maduro as acting president following the death of Hugo Chavez.
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"This swearing-in is fraudulent," Henrique Capriles, tipped as the opposition's candidate in upcoming elections, said after the Supreme Court ruled that Maduro could become acting president while polls are called within 30 days.
"Nicolas, nobody elected you president. The people didn't vote for you, kid," said Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election.
He argued that the constitution requires the vice president to step down from his post in order to run for president.
Capriles also took issue with the court's ruling allowing Maduro to be "acting" president instead of "caretaker" president.
Earlier, Venezuela gave Hugo Chavez a lavish farewell at a state funeral Friday that brought some of the world's most notorious strongmen to tears, with music, prayers and a fiery speech by his successor.
More than 30 heads of state paid tribute to the leftist firebrand president as his body lay in state in a flag-covered coffin at a military academy, bringing the curtain down on a 14-year reign that divided his nation.
