If Venezuela's opposition manages to push Chavez out, what would come next? [Full text] By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela - This is how Venezuela's opposition hones its strategy to defeat President Hugo Chavez: Leaders sit around a table screaming at each other, each trying to drown out the others. Some call for Chavez's immediate resignation. Others demand a popular referendum. Yet others want general elections.
"Nobody is really in control. People are shouting, trying to get their message across," said a person who has attended several of the meetings, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
If opposition leaders can't agree among themselves, it could be difficult for them to rally Venezuelans around a contender capable of beating Chavez - who still commands 30 percent approval ratings - at the ballot box.
At least half a dozen politicians have emerged as potential candidates against Chavez - that is, if early elections are eventually held. Each would be a clean break from the leftist former paratrooper and would move Venezuela's foreign policy away from Cuba and toward Washington. They would remove the army from civil duties Chavez has given them, such as painting schools and fixing roads. They would restructure Chavez's extensive programs designed to help Venezuela's poor majority.
The strongest following is for Enrique Mendoza, the governor of Miranda state, which hugs the capital city. Wearing a backward baseball cap and faded jeans, Mendoza mixes informal charm with a record of efficient state governance.
According to a recent survey by the Caracas-based Datanalisis polling firm, Mendoza would get 63 percent of the vote in a one-on-one election against Chavez. Pollsters interviewed 1,000 people in two major cities between Nov. 11 and 19. The survey had a margin of error of three percentage points.
Close behind Mendoza are Julio Borges, a congressman who acted as a judge resolving neighborly disputes in a popular television show, and Henrique Salas Romer, a former governor who ran against Chavez in 1998.
Before Chavez's 1998 landslide victory, Venezuela had seen a 40-year alternation of three centrist political parties, who presided over the riches of an oil boom - and the devastation of an oil bust.
Chavez's challengers condemn his visits with Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and his close personal friend Fidel Castro of Cuba. A new government would likely establish a different foreign policy by strengthening ties with officials in Washington, who Chavez has irked with his "revolutionary" rhetoric, while distancing Venezuela from U.S. enemies like communist-led Cuba.
Shortly after taking office, Chavez played a key role in persuading members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut production and boost oil prices. In so doing, he turned Venezuela, traditionally an OPEC quota buster, into the 11-member cartel's leading price hawk.
Under new leadership, the need to create jobs and increase government revenue could prompt a break with OPEC, leaving Venezuela free to produce and export and much oil as it wants.
Oil exports account to 70 percent of Venezuela's gross domestic product and roughly half of government revenue.
But first, the opposition needs to clarify how it intends to oust Chavez. And on that there is little unity.
Proposals range from a constitutional amendment to cut the president's term from six to four years, to a nonbinding referendum on his rule that might encourage him to resign.
Others believe the best tactic is the pressure of the current general strike, which has lasted 13 days and paralyzed the economy. More than 1 million people rallied Saturday night in the opposition's biggest march yet.
"Some people are carrying signs reading 'Elections Now!' while others yell 'Resign Now!' Those are two completely different situations, and I'm not sure people realize that," said Datanalisis President Antonio Gil Yepes.
While opposition politicians fight for the spotlight and hash out their differences, Chavez is calling on march-happy strike leaders to "move from protest to proposal."
His government has tried to capitalize on the differences within the Democratic Coordinator, the umbrella organization of opposition groups.
The state-run television channel on Saturday broadcast what it said was a taped telephone conversation between two prominent opposition leaders, labor boss Carlos Ortega and former guerrilla Angela Zago.
In the conversation, the two speakers insult fellow opposition leaders, calling them "idiots," and the one identified as Ortega refers to members of the fledgling First Justice party, to which Borges belongs, as "kids."
The two people on the tape discuss a strategy aimed at removing Chavez through a nonbinding referendum on his mandate. They are dubious of an outright vote, saying Chavez would use fraud to win, and say forcing his resignation would be preferable.
The government television station didn't say how it obtained the tape.
Amid all the confusion, most opposition supporters concede Chavez has helped their nation of 24 million people: He has made Venezuelans think about their leadership.
"The one good thing about Chavez is that before we were very different: Nobody went to vote," Denise Carbonell, a 45-year-old engineer, said at an opposition march. "Now everybody will." [End]
You are so right! No leftist truly wants to help the poor. It is just their means to power. They appeal to the poor and ignorant who believe in greed and a free lunch.