The last words uttered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were: “I don’t want to die”, according to the head of the presidential guard.

Following a seven-hour procession through the streets of Caracas, the coffin holding the body of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has been placed in a chapel in the Military Academy of Venezuela, where it will stay until the Friday funeral.

General Jose Ornella said that Mr Chavez had suffered a massive heart attack but that even on his death bed the man who dominated Venezuela for 14 years did not want to let go.

General Ornella said: “He couldn’t speak but he said it with his lips … ‘I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die.’ because he loved his country, he sacrificed himself for his country.”

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have begun filing past the open casket of the late president, as he lies in state at the military academy.

Mr Chavez’s family and close advisers, as well as the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay, have attended a funeral Mass around his glass-topped casket.

Thousands of weeping supporters followed the hearse as it crawled from the military hospital where Chavez passed away to the Military Academy of Venezuela. Huge crowds lined up to bid a final farewell as his body was placed in half-open casket draped with the Venezuelan flag.

Hugo Chavez died on March 5, following a long battle with cancer. The head of Venezuela’s presidential guard said Chavez died of a massive heart attack after a long period of suffering. The general was with the Venezuelan leader at the time of his death, he told .

General Jose Ornella indicated that Chavez’s last words were the mouthed: “I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die.”

Chavez’s hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro walked with a sober face alongside the car. He was accompanied by the late president’s staunch ally, Bolivian leader Evo Morales.

Other close Latin American allies, including Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and Uruguay’s Jose Mejica, had already arrived in Caracas ahead of the state funeral, which is to take place on Friday.

Grieving family members, top officials and the foreign leaders attended a funeral Mass before Chavez’s open coffin.

Balloons representing the colors of the Venezuelan flag were released outside the military academy as people chanted: “Chavez lives, the struggle goes on.”

Flamboyant socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who led the so-called Bolivarian Revolution, passed away at the age of 58 on Tuesday following a two-year fight against cancer and a severe respiratory infection.

, journalist Virginia Lopez said: “Family, friends and members of the President’s Guard of Honour joined the parade.

“The streets are bursting with people wearing red berets that Chavez made emblematic of his rule.”

Minutes before his final journey, vice president Nicolas Maduro said Mr Chavez’s “spirit roams freely, filled with light protecting our people. Our people are in the streets expressing their solidarity, their feelings”.

He fought back tears as he announced the death on Tuesday night in a national television broadcast.

He said Mr Chavez, who had been in power for 14 years, died at 4.25pm local time “after battling a tough illness for nearly two years”.

He claimed the late president’s illness had been induced by foul play by “the historical enemies of our homeland”.

His Vice President Nicolas Maduro has temporarily taken over and, with elections due to be called within 30 days. Defeating opposition leader Henrique Capriles, Chavez had been reelected last October for his fourth term but was almost absent from political life due to his battle with cancer.

Now the country braces for new heated election, the outcome of which will determine whether a change in leadership will challenge the order established by Chavez’s revolution.

Now the country is braced for new hotly-contested election, the outcome of which will determine whether a change in leadership will challenge the order established by Chavez’s New Bolivarian Revolution.

“We are going to see a very heated election and any intervention on the part of the US would be taken as hostility towards Venezuela and would play into the elections,” Latin America expert Miguel Tinker Salas told .

“After the election of the new president, I think there are good conditions for an effort to re-establish relationships. But I think we need to understand that it’s not just Venezuela that had difficulty with Washington… WikiLeaks reports really indicate how the US attempted to maneuver and play country against country in Latin America, and provided a revealing look into how little US policy has changed, either from Bush or Obama.”

Gregory Wilpert, co-founder of Venezuelanalaysis.com, is convinced that Nicolas Maduro is set to win the election as polls show that 55 against 36 per cent of the population back him.

He argues that throughout most of Chavez’s rule the country witnessed continuous economic growth.

“Certainly there’s a problem in inefficiency in public administration, but that’s a chronic problem that’s been around since before Chavez. And claims that Chavez has somehow made this worse I don’t find believable… a lot of things have been repaired and a lot are in better shape than before,” he told

The man Mr Chavez defeated in October’s presidential elections, Miranda state Governor Henrique Capriles, is expected to represent the opposition in the national polls. He called for unity and offered his condolences to Mr Chavez’s family.

Venezuela’s defence minister pledged the military would remain loyal to the constitution in the wake of Mr Chavez’s death.

Dominic Waghorn said Mr Chavez “used a mixture of brute force, persuasion, passion and charisma to keep himself in power”.

“Such was the adoration and devotion that mainly the poor in Venezuela felt for him that he was seen as this almost sort of religious figure, and his loss now leaves a huge void in Venezuelan politics.

“A lot of people say he is irreplaceable,” Waghorn added.

Hugo Chavez coffins Caracas parade

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