Friday, November 21, 2008

Chavez May Lose Ground in State Elections, Then Grab More Power

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's allies may lose elections this weekend in a third of the country's states and dozens of cities four years after winning near-total control of the regional governments.

Chavez may respond by grabbing more power for himself, continuing on a path toward centralized control that critics say borders on authoritarianism. ``Chavez is autocratic and doesn't want to share power,'' said Milos Alcalay, 63, Venezuela's former ambassador to the United Nations. ``He's already said he will try to put new structures above and below opposition governors.''

A majority of Venezuelans still support Chavez, 54, a charismatic leader who took the presidency in 1999 promising to empower the poor. His party won control of all but two of the country's 23 states in 2004. Now many voters are souring on his socialist political project as oil revenue plunges, development projects get delayed and crime spirals upward. Last year, voters narrowly defeated a constitutional overhaul that would have abolished term limits that require him to relinquish the presidency in 2013. Polling firm Datanalisis has projected opposition parties have a chance at winning as many as eight governorships this year as voters grow restive. ``If they evaluated the job that regional governments have done, and the majority of them are pro-Chavez, it doesn't look good'' for Chavez, Luis Vicente Leon, a Datanalisis pollster.

Scrambling to regain lost ground, Chavez has been holding campaign rallies almost every day for a month in states and cities with tight races and denouncing his opponents as corrupt betrayers of his socialist revolution.

`My Destiny'

``What's at play here is my destiny,'' Chavez said this week in the oil-producing Zulia state. ``That Chavez can continue governing depends on what happens on'' election day. Leon said the president ``is trying to turn this race into a plebiscite on him, so that people don't talk about crime, schools and water, but instead about his revolution. It's reduced to `Chavez-against-the-corrupt-opposition.'''

If he loses significant ground in the Nov. 23 local and regional elections, Chavez will be confronted with a choice: Work to co-opt political groups in Venezuela's splintered opposition, as well as the dissident factions within his coalition, or crack down on them. His previous moves suggest he'll do the latter, taking advantage of powers he decreed for himself this year but hasn't yet invoked.

Laws by Decree

Those powers allow him to carve existing jurisdictions into federally-governed territories -- effectively making opposition state and local leaders powerless figure heads. He has also threatened in campaign speeches to slash funding for development projects in states where his Socialist Party candidates meet defeat. After he lost last year's bid to amend the constitution, Chavez enacted 26 laws by decree, many similar to those voters rejected, including rules that allow the president to supersede state governors and appoint local officials. Then the government's corruption watchdog, who is appointed by a congress Chavez allies control, barred some of the most promising opposition candidates from running in regional races.

While Chavez tells voters they are either for or against him, his opposition isn't so simple. Of the 21 states he controlled after the 2004 vote, three are run by governors now known as ``dissident Chavistas,'' and two are in the hands of the Podemos party, which broke with his coalition.

Campaign Threats

``What's most alarming, aside from what's going to happen with these decreed laws starting Nov. 24, is the war he's announced between centralization and a federal system,'' said Cecilia Sosa, former president of the Venezuelan Supreme Court. During the campaign, Chavez threatened to imprison opposition leader Manuel Rosales, who is running for mayor of Maracaibo, the second-biggest city, for alleged corruption. Rosales is now Zulia state governor.

Other elements of government are following Chavez's lead in attacking the opposition. State television has broadcast taped telephone conversations of opposition candidates, including Rosales, conducting business deals, implying they're engaged in illicit activities.

Andres Izarra, 39, Chavez's communications and information minister, said the opposition's only plan for the country is opposing Chavez. ``It's very hard to find a way of reporting the situation here without a political position,'' Izarra said in an interview. ``It ends in a media war. We're winning as long as politically we keep advancing.''

Campaign Rallies

Chavez's base of supporters, dressed in party-logo red shirts and red baseball caps, turns out by the thousands for his campaign rallies, which often look more like street parties than political rallies. ``Socialism is what makes us a people,'' said Chavez supporter Luis Parra, 21, a worker at the El Palito refinery owned by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, sipping a plastic cup of whisky at a rally in the port city of Puerto Cabello. ``Inflation and crime are realities, but we've learned how to survive.''

Antonio Ledezma, the opposition candidate for Caracas mayor, said the president's campaign is overlooking concrete issues such as the economy.

Venezuela's annual inflation rate rose to a five-year high of 36 percent in September, and last year the homicide rate in Caracas jumped to 130 per 100,000 people, a 47 percent increase from 2005, according to Central University of Venezuela's Center for Peace, which compiles crime statistics from government data.

Grab for Power

``In every slum people are looking for solutions to their problems,'' Ledezma said in an interview. ``It would be abnormal to find someone content to live among untreated sewage. In parts of Caracas there are constant gun fights between gangs.'' Ledezma, like other opposition candidates, predicted that Chavez will make another grab for power after the elections, seeking again to eliminate the presidential term limit. ``What Chavez loses sleep over is the re-election issue,'' Ledezma said. ``Chavez doesn't see himself without the presidential jet. He can't imagine himself outside of the Miraflores presidential palace.''

No comments:

Post a Comment