Chavez’ will prevails: PSUV wins in 17 states, opposition in five

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): President Hugo Chavez' ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) largely kept its grip on power at state level in Sunday's election, although the opposition inflicted some notable upsets on the way. There'd been concern that the second-tier elections would be marred by abstention, but this proved unfounded when the National Electoral Council (CNE) reported a turn-out of 65.45 percent.

The CNE's preliminary results after a long delay on Sunday night showed the PSUV controlling 17 states, with the opposition gaining three to take its total to five.

Chavez had played a prominent role throughout the campaign, even though he himself wasn't running for office. The election came to be as much or more about him than anything else, and in its immediate wake, the vote was deemed in that light to have broadly endorsed his mandate.

With the PSUV still controlling large swathes of the country, the opposition had failed to come anywhere near repeating the narrow margin which defeated Chávez' constitutional reform plan at last December's referendum.

The opposition regained some lost ground when it pulled out of the parliamentary elections in 2005. Its big win at state level was in Miranda, where Henrique Capriles Radonski put an end to any hopes of re-election incumbent PSUV Governor Diosdado Cabello might have been harboring. Capriles Radonski got 53.27 percent to Cabello's 45.94 percent.

However, failure in Miranda would have been little short of disastrous for the opposition. Cabello's majority last time was barely 3.5 percentage points, and he was beset by high crime in a state with more than its fair share of prosperous voters. Voters also switched sides in Carabobo, where former governor Henrique Salas Feo got his old job back by beating broadcaster Mario Silva of the PSUV by 47.72 percent to 44.29 percent.

The third state to go over to the opposition was Tachira, with Cesar Perez Vivas of the Social Christian party, Copei, getting 49.53 percent against 48.04 percent for the PSUV's Leonardo Salcedo. But in Aragua state, former finance minister Rafael Isea of the PSUV won 58.77 percent to see off Henry Rosales of Podemos, the social democratic party which once supported Chavez but went over to the opposition, who got 39.96 percent.

In Guarico, where dissidence threatened after Chavez disowned incumbent Governor Eduardo Manuitt, former information minister Willian Lara walked to victory with 52.3 percent. Manuitt's daughter, Lenny, who ran with support from the small pro-Chavez party, Patria Para Todos (PPT), got 33.46 percent.

The PSUV had made much of taking Zulia state, making outgoing opposition Governor Manuel Rosales a target of numerous allegations yet to be proven in court. The results suggest this may have backfired. Rosales was not allowed to run for a third successive term and the opposition picked Pablo Perez, also of Rosales' party, Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT). He won the race for governor with 53.49 percent against 45.11 percent for Gian Carlo Di Martino, until now PSUV mayor of the state capital, Maracaibo – the job Rosales stood for.