Chavez face appeared in subway tunnel: Venezuelan President

CARACAS - Agence France-Presse

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro (L) and Jorge Rodriguez, mayor of Libertador Caracas municipality, show a picture taken by workers in a tunnel showing an alleged visage of late President Hugo Chavez, in Caracas on October 30, 2013. AFP PHOTO/PRESIDENCIA

Hugo Chavez may have died in March, but his successor says the comandante is still around, most recently in an image of his face that appeared on a subway tunnel.

President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday workers in the tunnel saw the image come and go, and he showed a photo of the alleged visage in a rally in Caracas. "Look at the figure, a face. This picture was taken by the workers," he said, smiling. "Chavez is everywhere." Maduro, handpicked by the ailing Chavez to run for president upon his death, said during the election campaign in April that he had seen the populist leader incarnated as "a little bird." Since then in several speeches he has imitated the tweeting of a bird to allude to Chavez.

Critics have made fun of him. But Maduro brushed this off, and called on all Venezuelans to be "little birds" of the government he oversees.

Then, in June, Maduro said Chavez tends to appear to him in the mountains that overlook Caracas.

"Every time I see the mountain, I see Chavez appear on the mountain," he said once.