Chavez govt's popularity eroding

Chavez govt's popularity eroding
Mar 20, 2008 5:02 PM

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is struggling to regain his momentum as inflation, crime and nagging shortages of basic goods cut into his government's popularity before important state elections later this year.

The leftist leader lost a referendum last December on speeding up his socialist reforms - his first electoral defeat since taking office in 1999 - reflecting growing discontent with daily problems of violent crime and long lines for basics like milk, which is in short supply.

Chavez's humble rural roots, along with his commitment to high public spending on health centres, education and subsidized food, have made his government hugely popular among Venezuela's majority poor for the best part of a decade.

But a poll published on Tuesday in El Nacional newspaper showed support for the government, although not for Chavez himself, had slumped to 34%, down 9 points since December and its lowest since 2003 when the country was hit by opposition protests aimed at cutting short Chavez's term.

"It makes sense," Daniel Hellinger, a Venezuela expert at Webster University in St Louis, said of the popularity slump. "There is a lot of discontent among core Chavez supporters about corruption and inefficiency in government services."

Chavez is aware of the problems and is pressuring his Cabinet ministers to try to resolve the problems before November elections for state governors and mayors.

He has warned his allies they could lose Caracas and several states in oil-producing regions if they do not get back on track before then.

Problems like corruption are deeply ingrained in Venezuelan society and heavy spending of record oil revenues has spurred inflation. The business sector blames government price controls and over-regulation for the food shortages.

On the streets of the capital, Caracas, some longtime Chavez supporters said they had started to lose faith in the government.

Gregorio Arias, 71, who lives in a sprawling slum on the outskirts of the capital and voted for Chavez several times, said he was still grateful for pension hikes. But he added rising prices and worries the the government had become too radical were giving him doubts.

"I'm just not sure now, ever since they started saying the state was going to take away your home," he said in a reference to rumours, rigourously denied by the government, that its December reform plan would have banned private property.

Michael Shifter, of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank, said the December defeat was a psychological blow to Chavez's popularity.

"With the aura of invincibility gone, the government's vulnerabilities have become more apparent. In political terms, Chavez has been in a tailspin."

Chavez can at least take heart from the fact that his opponents, a fractured group of mostly right-wing politicians, gained only 3 percentage points in the survey.

Conducted by pollsters Datos at the end of February, the survey was taken before Chavez sent tanks to the border with Colombia in a short but serious diplomatic crisis. The survey of 2,000 people in urban areas had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

By DodgerDogs on 2008-03-20 04:13:33 in Politics & the war.

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DodgerDogs says on Thursday March 20th, 2008 4:15: He also is showing his Chavez Stalin side more everyday. Venezuela is implementing constitutional changes that were rejected in a recent nationwide referendum, El Nuevo Herald reported Wednesday. The government of President Hugo Chavez announced last month it would nationalize several sectors of the economy and change the education system -- proposals that Venezuelan voters rejected in a referendum vote late last year. On the domestic front, (Chavez) continues his advance toward imposing his project of 21st century communism, said Robert Bottome, head of the Caracas consulting firm Vencomia. Copyright 2008 by United Press International Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.Martin Luther King:

sloopskipper says on Thursday March 20th, 2008 5:09: Burn baby burn!

Robert Jorge says on Thursday March 20th, 2008 6:01: I think the proposed mini-skirt ban was the straw that broke the camel's back.

jack_jason says on Thursday March 20th, 2008 6:44: jejejeje, that's a good one RJ This is just spanglish, please do not correct me

goin_south says on Thursday March 20th, 2008 23:14: I guess chavez needs to re-kindle those trade routes with Colombia, eh? NO MAS........ MARINERO YERRI'S... ;-(

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