Chavismo loses its charisma

Ten years after he was first elected, President Hugo Chávez faces a critical test in regional and local elections tomorrow. And he knows it.

He has threatened to cut off national funds and send tanks on to the
streets of those states that end up in the hands of opponents.

He has called for the imprisonment of the main opposition leader, Manuel
Rosales, whom he has accused of corruption and even plotting his assassination.

He has used the country's secret police and Cuba's G-2 spy agency to bug
Rosales's telephone calls, and broadcast his conversations in television
advertisements.

He has abused his right to cut into live programming with emergency
announcements that turn out to be his latest speech.

Even given Mr Chávez's penchant for speaking at full volume, this is desperate stuff.

It is not immediately obvious why he feels the need to cast tomorrow's poll as an existential battle to protect his Bolivarian revolution. He is still popular, with personal approval ratings of over 50%; Venezuela is a vibrant democracy, and the government's investment in free health clinics and subsidised grocery stores commands genuine support. However, the same polls suggest that a resurgent opposition could gain control of between six and nine states, including some of the most economically important such as Carabobo, Miranda, and Zulia.

It is not the traitorous "little Yankees" taking orders from Washington (which is how Mr Chávez depicts the opposition) whom many of tomorrow's voters fear, but foes closer to home like chronic food shortages, rising crime, inflation and poor public services.

Mr Chávez is casting the poll as a Manichean battle between capitalism and socialism, two titanic forces wrestling for the soul of his country.

The truth may be somewhat less high-flown. If he can keep losses to a minimum Mr Chávez is expected to push for a constitutional referendum to abolish term limits, which will allow him to stay in power for as long as he wins elections. But if the opposition clip his wings he will be back to where he was in December last year, when 3 million of his former supporters abstained from a referendum which pushed for further concentration of power in an autocratic government.

When Human Rights Watch published a damning report in September accusing his government of taking over the courts and cowing the media, trade unions and civil society, Mr Chávez's response was to kick its authors out of the country. He should instead take the criticism and think back to those days, a decade ago, when he pledged to uphold a constitution that guaranteed basic rights. His revolution would be longer-lived for it.