Posted on 03/07/2002 12:57:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemned a business and labor alliance against him as a "pact of elites" on Wednesday and said the nation's poor would not support a government without him.
"I'm not going to respond to provocations," the left-wing leader said during a ceremony to inaugurate a computerized customs system at La Guaira port near the capital of Caracas.
Chavez, who is battling mounting political opposition to his 3-year-old rule in the world's No 4. oil exporter, dismissed a pact against him announced Tuesday by the country's leading private sector and trades union groups.
In the rare alliance, which stiffened the opposition challenge to the populist president, Venezuela's Workers' Confederation and the Fedecamaras business association presented a blueprint for democratic government in a post-Chavez era.
"Some people are now already talking about a Venezuela without Chavez," the outspoken president said sarcastically.
The tough-talking former paratrooper, whose popularity has fallen sharply in opinion polls in recent months, said his 1998 election victory had broken an "immoral pact of elites" that he said had existed under successive previous governments.
"In Venezuela, such pacts between elites will never return again," he added.
Chavez, who says his self-proclaimed revolution aims to close the gap between Venezuela's rich and poor, is fighting off a storm of criticism and protests from many quarters, including the Catholic Church and dissident military officers.
The Workers' Confederation, Venezuela's largest union grouping, and employees at the state oil giant PDVSA are considering strikes against the government after the president's refusal to revoke contested reform laws and government appointments.
"LET'S SEE WHAT THE PEOPLE SAY"
Chavez, who tried to seize power in a 1992 coup bid six years before winning national elections, has brushed aside the rising criticism and insists he still has the support of the poor majority of Venezuela's 24 million population.
He accused those that had ruled before him of having "turned their backs on the majority of the country".
"I would like to see those who are seeking to revive old agreements (between elites) ... try to present a pact excluding Chavez to the majority of the people," the president said.
"Let them go ahead, let's see what the people say," said the president, who has been mobbed by big crowds of cheering supporters during recent visits to poor Caracas neighborhoods.
In other parts of the city, however, he has been greeted several times by noisy demonstrators beating pots and pans.
In their "democratic accord" Tuesday, CTV and Fedecamaras set out 10 strategic goals for a post-Chavez government, such as fighting poverty, maintaining national unity and civilian democratic rule, and seeking economic efficiency. The country's influential Catholic Church backed the pact.
Fedecamaras President Pedro Carmona and labor leader Carlos Ortega made clear they were planning for Chavez' "democratic and constitutional departure", without specifying how.
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