Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, seeking to stay in office beyond 2013, played up the “advantage” of having congress propose a constitutional amendment to get rid of presidential term limits.
Chavez said congress can move faster to get the measure to a referendum by February than would be possible by gathering about 2.5 million signatures on petitions. Still, his Venezuela United Socialist Party hasn’t decided how to propose the amendment, Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television. Voters last year rejected a proposal to end term limits.
A second referendum aimed at allowing Chavez to run again sets up a confrontation with Venezuela’s energized opposition, which last month won control of governorships in five states, including the three most populous, and the two biggest cities.
“I’ll be here as long as God wants and as long as the people demand it,” Chavez, 54, said during an outdoor ceremony today to swear in a governor from the socialist party. In speeches yesterday and today, Chavez was introduced while a campaign song played, set to a Caribbean beat, that includes the chorus: “Uh, ah, Chavez no se va!,” or “Chavez won’t go.”
Opposition
An Ecoanalitica poll conducted in Venezuela’s six biggest cities in September, before Chavez made clear he would push for a second national vote, found that 65.9 percent of citizens oppose eliminating term limits. The poll of 1,200 people had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll is “limited” because it focuses only on urban areas, where Chavez’s popularity has suffered, said Michael Penfold, a director at Ecoanalitica. In the Nov. 23 regional elections Chavez’s socialist party carried most of the countries rural states. “This is going to be a very close election, and I think this is going to create more instability and conflict,” Penfold said in a telephone interview.
Venezuelan opposition parties gained ground this year for the first time since Chavez allies won control of almost every state in 2004 regional elections and almost every seat in the National Assembly in 2005. Prior to that, the oil-exporting country suffered sometimes violent confrontations between opposition parties and the president.
Coup
In 2002 Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup carried out by opposition parties against his drive to centralize control. A two-month long nationwide strike followed.
“These people don’t want a king,” said Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who was elected last month mayor of Maracaibo, the second-biggest city, EFE reported. “He ought to get to work on the people’s problems, for those that don’t have water, that don’t have electricity, that don’t have gas, that don’t have jobs.”
Chavez and his government have stepped up attacks on opposition leaders since losing urbanized cities and states in the Nov. 23 elections. After the president threatened to imprison Rosales for weeks on alleged corruption, Venezuela’s attorney general summoned the mayor to appear next week. Rosales is the former governor of oil- producing Zulia state, who Chavez defeated in the 2006 presidential election.
Social Programs
State television has started regularly broadcasting images of the 2002 coup, and has accused opposition mayors and governors of attempting to dismantle social programs set up to benefit the poor. Chavez may be trying to rush through a vote on term limits before the recent plunge in oil prices can affect his popularity, said Patrick Esteruelas, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in New York, in a note to clients.
The Venezuelan oil basket, a benchmark of prices for oil exports, dropped 68.7 percent from a record in July to $39.59 a barrel on Nov. 28. The Energy and Oil Ministry publishes the basket price weekly.
“Chavez clearly feels that he should seize the moment before his approval ratings slip once more amid a slowing economy, declining oil revenue and doggedly high inflation,” Esteruelas said.
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