PEOPLE POWER? Maduro challenger shakes up Venezuela’s presidential vote.

“Traitor!” cry socialist stalwarts, who cannot forgive the former state governor for breaking with their beloved late leader Hugo Chavez in 2010.

“Chavista lite!” say opposition radicals, always suspicious that Falcon came into their ranks as a Trojan horse.

Now that the 56-year-old former soldier is running for president in a May 20 vote, both groups are united in scoffing at his chances.

After all, Falcon is up against not just a powerful President Nicolas Maduro but also an election system widely considered unfair and an opposition boycott that will deprive him of votes.

And yet, a clutch of opinion polls show Falcon ahead, bolstering his campaign mantra that he is a natural transition candidate with appeal to a moderate majority fed up with political polarization and economic chaos.

Widely-followed pollster Datanalisis, for example, put him more than 10 percentage points ahead in voter intentions.

Stay tuned…