The government's sustained war against opposition Governor Manuel Rosales of Zulia state in western Venezuela took a sinister turn when Vice President Ramón Carrizalez said he could be arrested on corruption charges after the regional elections scheduled for next Sunday.
Carrizales claimed that "everything indicates"that Rosales is also planning to leave Venezuela for Miami, where several prominent figures from the Venezuelan recent past currently live in exile.
Chávez has repeatedly accused Rosales of corruption, and vowed to put the governor behind bars. Last week, he demanded that Rosales should explain where he got the funds to buy 13 ranches and a house in the United States. Rosales, who has become de facto leader of the opposition, ran against Chavez for President in 2006.
Last week, Rosales failed to answer a summons from the National Assembly for questioning. He said he was not willing to be a party to a "show" and that there had been several "irregularities" in the way the summons was drawn up and delivered making it not legal. Chavez has very publicly gone after Rosales, saying he is "like a tumor in the body of Zulia State" and saying that he wants him as a "prisoner."
Government officials have taken the Chávez line by accusing Rosales not only of corruption, but a host of other crimes including links to drugs trafficking, illegal weapons, misuse of public funds and conspiring against the head of state and the Constitution, among others. He denies all the charges.
Rosales is a candidate for mayor of the Zulia state capital, Maracaibo, and opinion polls consistently give him high ratings as governor and a strong lead over the candidate for Chávez' ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The government's PSUV candidate for governor, Gian Carlo Di Martino, who's currently Maracaibo mayor, claimed that Rosales' party, Un Nuevo Tiempo, was plotting to disrupt the final days before the vote and the vote itself with violent acts.
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