[Pen-l] Venezuela

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

I know that this reporter is unreliable, but what is the true part of
the following? the false part?

The New York Times /November 25, 2008

News Analysis
Once Considered Invincible, Chávez Takes a Blow
By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — From the hardened slums of this city to some of
Venezuela's most populous and economically important states, many of
President Hugo Chávez's supporters deserted him in regional elections,
showing it is possible to challenge him in areas where he was once
thought invincible.

The outcome of Sunday's vote was the second blow dealt to the
president in a year, after voters rejected last December his plan to
alter the Constitution to give himself more power. Although it was
unclear whether the results would slow his Socialist-inspired
revolution or check his power, they could complicate his ambitions to
amend the Constitution to allow him to run again.

Mr. Chávez, who has been in power for 10 years, has focused on raising
political consciousness across disenfranchised parts of society. Now,
voters in a sizable part of Venezuela sent him a message that they
wanted not a monopoly on power, but solutions to economic and social
ills that are glaringly apparent on their streets.

Though Mr. Chávez's allies won 17 of the 22 states in Sunday's vote,
his opponents did well in some poor urban areas, and in states like
Zulia, where much of Venezuela's oil is produced; Carabobo, the home
of auto manufacturers and petrochemical plants; and Táchira, rich in
agriculture and cattle. Mr. Chávez framed the elections as a
plebiscite on his evolving revolutionary ideology, but voters appeared
to focus on more mundane concerns like inflation, which at more than
30 percent is the highest rate in Latin America, and fears that an
economic boom might be sputtering to an end as oil prices plunge,
forcing Mr. Chávez to reconsider his spending plans.

Violent crime, an Achilles' heel for Mr. Chávez, also weighed heavily
on voters. While his government no longer releases detailed homicide
statistics, private organizations here put the murder rate in Caracas
at about 130 per 100,000, about four times the rate in Medellín,
Colombia.

In Petare, a sprawling area of slums on the eastern fringe of Caracas,
long lines at polling stations snaked into alleyways on Sunday as
voters delivered the area, part of a municipality long considered a
Chávez bulwark, to Carlos Ocariz, a mild-mannered 37-year-old
engineer.

"We punctured the myth that only Chávez can be a champion of the
poor," said Eduardo Ramírez, 61, a political activist in Petare who
campaigned for Mr. Ocariz.

"Chávez's rhetoric is one thing," he said, "but the reality is another
when he does nothing to stop the bloodshed on our doorstep."

The defeat in some of the slums of Caracas irked Mr. Chávez to the
point that he went on state television Monday night, chafing at the
election results. Warning the opposition, he said, "Don't think you
control Petare."

Among the pro-Chávez candidates who lost were members of the
president's inner circle, including Mario Silva, the host of La
Hojilla (translation: The Razorblade), a program on state television
used to attack Mr. Chávez's opponents. Sometimes Mr. Silva played
taped recordings of opponents' intimate cellphone conversations or
aired their instant-messaging transcripts.

With Mr. Silva trailing in polls ahead of the election, Mr. Chávez
threatened to mobilize tanks in Carabobo State in the event of his
ally's defeat, one of many of his menacing comments that linger, as if
to remind voters of the vulnerability of their democracy to threats
and intimidation.

During the campaign, Mr. Chávez called opponents "traitors" and
"swine," and his government blacklisted almost 300 candidates,
preventing them from running in what has been argued to be a violation
of the Constitution.

Of course, there are other ways to view the electoral results, since
Mr. Chávez's candidates won most of the states up for grabs.

Even if many of those states have limited political and economic
clout, Mr. Chávez remains by far the dominant and most popular figure
in Venezuelan politics. The purse strings of public finances
throughout the country still rest largely in his hands. His loyalists
still control the National Assembly and the Supreme Court.

Moreover, Mr. Chávez has used his decree powers to create laws
allowing him to appoint new regional leaders with their own budgets, a
move that would deal a blow to the new governors in the opposition.
Still, the president's critics celebrated chiseling away at his power.
"Winning the majority of state governorships but losing the key ones
cannot be spun as a victory by a man who campaigned as if his life
depended on it," said Pedro Mario Burelli, a former director of
Venezuela's state oil company, Pdvsa.

Another way of viewing the results is to look at a post-election map
of Venezuela. Most states are colored red, the color of Mr. Chávez's
Socialist party. Opposition footholds are blue.

The president's candidates won in the largely rural red states. But in
a shift that may point to further erosion of Mr. Chávez's clout,
Venezuela's cities, and more important, its slums, are in play. How
else to explain the victory of the opposition in most of Caracas?

Luís Pedro España, an economist who studies poverty issues, said poor
voters here who voted for Mr. Chávez's opponents had the same access
to information, and many of the same complaints about public services,
as neighbors in wealthier districts.

"The more modern part of the country wants political change," he said.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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