Vice-president is seen as a reason to worry – or a beacon of hope – in Venezuela

At Jose Avalos high school in El Valle, a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuelan vice-president Nicolás Maduro is mostly remembered for his signature moustache and for the brief but inspired speeches of his student days.

The man named by President Hugo Chávez as his political heir, should he become too ill to govern, is described as an imposing figure and a conciliatory force in the classroom by Grisel Rojas, a classmate during the 1970s.

"He would address us during the assembly to talk about students' rights and that sort of thing. He didn't speak much, and wasn't agitating people into action, but what he did say was usually poignant," says Rojas, now 50, and the school's principal.

Chávez, who is in Cuba recovering from his fourth round of cancer-related surgery, feels Maduro is the man capable of continuing a political process set in motion 14 years ago.

The fact that Maduro is not Chávez is giving Venezuela's highly divided society a reason to worry or a beacon of hope.

Born in 1962 into a leftist family as the son of a union leader, Maduro began his political career as president of the student union at school from where, records show, he never graduated. He joined the ranks of the Socialist League and worked as a bus driver for the Caracas Metro company, where he followed in his father's footsteps and founded one of the company's first informal labour syndicates at a time when the company banned unions.

During the early 1990s, Maduro became a member of the MBR-200, the civilian wing of Chávez's insurrectional military movement, often campaigning for the release of Chávez, who was in jail for leading the failed 1992 coup.

Maduro became increasingly acquainted with other members of the growing Chávista political movement and helped found the Movement of the Fifth Republic, under which Chávez ran for president in 1998. During this time he met Cilia Flores, who headed the legal team that won Chávez his freedom in 1994, and who later became his wife. Flores is currently the country's attorney general.

With Chávez coming into power in 1998, Maduro's political ascent remained steady. In 1999, he was part of the team that drafted a new constitution and went on to serve as deputy at the national assembly until 2000, when he moved on to preside over the legislative body.

In 2006, Chávez named Maduro minister of foreign affairs, a post he continues to occupy and from where he has at times continued Chávez's incendiary rhetoric. In an regional summit in 2007, he called the then US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice a hypocrite and compared Guantánamo to atrocities not committed since Hitler's time, after Rice criticised the Chávez government for the closing down of a private TV station, but he has also succeeded in patching up strained relations with neighbouring Colombia.

"Nicolás is one of the strongest, and best-formed figures that the PSUV [Venezuela's socialist party] has. He was a union leader and that has given him incredibly negotiating abilities and a strong popular support. Additionally, his time in diplomacy has polished him and given him exposure", says Vladimir Villegas who knows Maduro from their student days and served under him at the foreign ministry.

While some see the man as an affable and approachable man of the people, others fear he will strengthen the country's pro-Cuba ties and deepen the region's anti-American sentiment.

Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College in the US, says: "Maduro is the Revolution's most Janus-faced character. On the one hand, he is one of the PSUV's most convinced leftist, anti-imperialist radical, and, on the other, he can be soft-spoken and conciliatory. He is the architect of the remarkable turnaround of relations with Colombia in the last two years".

Despite Chávez's endorsement, Maduro must consolidate his leadership within the ranks of chávismo, made up of distinct factions from the military, the radical left and even business, and who often have nothing in common other than the leader they might soon lose.

Additionally, Maduro would have to win a presidential election against an opposition that has been consistently growing.

Before the October elections that Chavez won with a comfortable 11-point margin, polls had shown that the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles would beat Maduro by six points.

But, say analysts, anything can change with Chávez's endorsement, which along with a sympathy vote would most likely increase support for the vice-president.

Back in the hallways of the Luis Avalos high school, Rojas is convinced that Maduro is up to the job if Chávez choses her former classmate to run the country.

"If Chávez named him, he's the man. Chávez knows what is best for the country," Rojas says.