Venezuelan election season heats up
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State and local elections in Venezuela on Nov. 23 will offer a key measure of President Hugo Chavez’s popularity. Inflation is pushing 40% and the fiery leader is feeling some budgetary pressure with the price of oil falling below $60 a barrel in trading today, though analysts believe he has enough cash socked away to withstand several months’ worth of price declines without his socialist programs becoming severely dented.
Chavez’s candidates should maintain control of a majority of the 22-state governorships, benefiting from the popularity of the president’s programs that have done much to redistribute the nation’s oil wealth.
Still, Chavez’s oratory is becoming increasingly incendiary as the voting draws closer, threatening Sunday to call out tanks to ‘defend the people’ if opposition candidate Enrique Salas Feo wins the governorship of Carabobo state.
The state is one of a half dozen of 22 that opposition candidates may win in the voting this month, up from two governorships held by opponents now. As always, Chavez is framing the elections as a referendum on Venezuelan independence from U.S. interventionism and in a talk on Tuesday claimed the oppostion had a plan to disregard the elections and mount violent protests: ‘Shut up, Bush, you’ve got nothing to say. Let’s hope President Barack Obama assumes a dignified position before the world.’
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota