Disowned governors refuse to lie down and roll over; PSUV is on the outs with PPT

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): As if anybody were in any doubt any more, President Hugo Chavez' United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is just about ready to show the door to his erstwhile allies at Patria Para Todos (PPT), judging by another outburst from party vice president Alberto Muller Rojas. The retired general earlier this week lambasted PPT's decision to back Lenny Manuitt for governor in Guarico -- where her father Eduardo is the incumbent but very much on the outs with the PSUV -- as "disloyalty."

And Muller Rojas has upped the verbal ante again. "PPT isn't the alliance," he said in reference to the Patriotic Pole, a loosely knit and visibly rocky coalition of parties backing President Hugo Chavez. "Podemos went, and whoever else can go," Muller Rojas said, dismissing the social democrats who walked out last year in protest against Chavez' ultimately unsuccessful bid to reform the constitution.

Lenny Manuitt, for whom PPT Secretary General Jose Albornoz set aside his own aspirations to run for Guarico governor, is now said to have resigned from the PSUV two weeks ago. That left her free, with backing from PPT, to take on former minister Willian Lara, who was parachuted in from PSUV headquarters in Caracas. This was tacitly confirmed by Lara himself. "I'm the President's option," he said. "The only thing that matters to me is November 23, and on that day we'll obtain the majority in a clean and transparent manner."

Opinion polls suggest Lara's still got support from the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) and hardliner Lina Ron's Unidad Popular Venezolana (UPV) and little local parties. However, Ron has warned that if another governor disowned by Chavez, Luis Felipe Acosta Carles in Carabobo, runs as an independent he could undermine the chosen candidate, broadcaster Mario Silva.

And in Yaracuy state, suspended Governor Carlos Gimenez won't lie down, either. The Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ) ruled in "pre-trial" proceedings that Gimenez had a case to answer in court on corruption charges and ordered him into limbo. He's now asked the TSJ to review its ruling, claiming that several aspects of the case brought by Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz violate his constitutional rights. Gimenez says that, TSJ or no, he'll run for re-election. He doesn't blame Chavez for his troubles but Muller Rojas and other bigwigs at the PSUV.