Coup rumours add spice to tomorrow's vote in Venezuela

Venezuelans go to the polls tomorrow for the seventh time in two years, to elect their president, congress and some state governors, and advance the overhaul of state institutions started by President Hugo Chavez, who was elected to office in December 1998.

"Oligarchs, tremble" is Mr Chavez's campaign slogan, borrowed from a 19th century revolutionary leader, who fought alongside Mr Chavez's great-grandfather in the war against the landed oligarchy.

President Chavez is seeking votes from the majority poor to secure a six-year term and implement a radical reform project, which would redistribute wealth and relocate urban squatters to rural farmland. A former lieutenant colonel who led an unsuccessful coup in 1992, Mr Chavez breezed into power at the ballot box six years later, sweeping away Venezuela's traditional parties, who have yet to recover.

Mr Chavez's only opposition candidate is a fellow coup conspirator, Mr Francisco Arias Cardenas, who fell out with his former ally over the pace of political change in the past two years. Mr Cardenas, a former seminarian and leftist, was governor of Zulia state in the 1990s, a prominent intellectual who lacks the common touch required on the stump.

President Chavez is expected to coast home by at least 15 points according to all recent opinion polls.

At his giant closing rally last Thursday, Mr Chavez advised voters to "get up early and get cracking on consolidating the Bolivarian revolution", a reference to Simon Bolivar, the nation's independence hero.

Insistent rumours of a coup plot and other political intrigues spiced up the last week of campaigning, while heavy rainfall interrupted the closing rallies, an ominous reminder of the devastating floods which left thousands dead after the last round of voting in December 1999.

President Chavez has spearheaded a "peaceful, democratic revolution', opposing the neo-liberal economic model which has left widespread corruption, 20 per cent unemployment, galloping inflation and upwards of 80 per cent of the population in poverty.

Mr Chavez has been fortunate to seize power at a time of rising oil prices, giving him a vital financial lifeline to pursue social spending. However, his left-wing nationalist project has powerful enemies, among them media, church and business leaders and now, it appears, within the armed forces.

Venezuela's military vote for the first time on Sunday, thanks to a new constitution which assigns the army "active participation in national development", but calls on them to refrain from "acts of propaganda or political proselytising".

Mr Chavez has taken soldiers out of their barracks and put them to work, notably in road-building, school repairs and operating "people's markets" which sell cheap food to the poor.

Mr Chavez has also urged soldiers to speak out in public if they discovered irregularities in the institution, an unprecedented liberty inside Latin America's armed forces.

The discrepancies between Mr Chavez and members of the armed forces took a dramatic turn this month when Mr Luis Garcia Morales, a former army captain, took President Chavez at his word and announced the existence of a "patriotic junta", which was analysing ways to remove Mr Chavez.

Mr Morales, forcibly retired for his comments, told the media an army sniper had offered to assassinate Mr Chavez but the plan had been aborted due to the potential for a violent reaction in the country. "He [Garcia] was implicated in an assassination plot," said Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel, "that cannot be ignored."

Mr Morales, now in hiding, also denounced growing discontent at the armed services' participation in social work projects, a development popular among junior officers but resented by members of the upper ranks, who see it as beneath them.

The climate of intrigue continued as Cuban defector Juan Rosabul Gonzalez claimed President Fidel Castro had sent 1,500 "ideological agents" to spread the good news in Venezuela, a claim dismissed as a pre-electoral gimmick.

However, Venezuelans are concerned at the growing links between Cuba and Venezuela, with opinion polls suggesting most Venezuelans feel no affinity for the Cuban revolution, making it a useful battering ram against Mr Chavez, a self-confessed fan of the Castro regime.

President Chavez is unpopular with the US government due to his suspected sympathies for the Colombian guerrillas. In addition, he refused permission for US planes to fly over Venezuela and also ordered boats carrying US soldiers to turn back during the severe flooding last December.

President Chavez's fiery rhetoric, however illusory, has sent thousands of upper class families scuttling to Miami, while the poor have awakened to the potential strength of their collective power.

The next few months will be critical for Venezuela's future, as President Chavez is expected to move swiftly and seize the moment to implement far-reaching changes in what may be the most significant political project on the continent since Castro seized power in Cuba.