Chavez’s Opponents Take Tougher Line

The opposition hardened its stance against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by demanding Thursday that striking state oil employees keep their jobs as part of any accord to end the crisis in the world’s No. 5 petroleum exporter.

Waving banners and national flags, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in different parts of the capital, Caracas, in support of demands that Chavez quit and call immediate elections.

But government officials, who have vowed to defeat the 25-day-old strike and oust dissidents from state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, swiftly rejected the new opposition demands.

“We cannot deal with delinquents,” Labor Minister Maria Cristina Iglesias said. “In what country in the world would those who attack the nation’s economic backbone be allowed to continue on there?”

The opposition shutdown has rocked global markets as the strikers choked off the nation’s vital oil production and hobbled petroleum exports.

Striking executives and managers at PDVSA on Thursday voted to keep up the stoppage until Chavez steps down, helping to drive New York oil futures up as high as $32.55 a barrel, the highest level since January 2001. Venezuela supplies more than 10% of U.S. oil imports.

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup in April, has dismissed demands for an early vote. His foes accuse Chavez of driving the economy into a sharp contraction and say his fiery populist rhetoric has fueled class hatred.

The opposition’s tougher stance will complicate efforts by international mediators to break the deadlock, because the president already has fired dozens of PDVSA executives.

Many Venezuelans lined up for hours at gasoline stations as they hunted for dwindling fuel supplies. Banks remain partly closed, and many other businesses have remained shuttered in support of the protest.

But commerce is bustling in the center of the capital and poorer areas, where support for the president is firmer.

The government is negotiating with the Dominican Republic to exchange oil for food imports as supplies of some basic goods have been hit by the strike, local media reported.

Talks between the government and opposition, brokered by the Organization of American States, have had no success.