Anti-Chavez voices fade in Venezuela. A year after coup, opposition looks for new strategy

The Boston Globe By Mike Ceaser, Globe Correspondent, 4/13/2003

CARACAS -- Elisa Beth Aez stood on Caracas's Altamira Plaza, hearing a dissident general call President Hugo Chavez a ''bandit'' and a ''communist.''

Behind her, where thousands had rallied a few months ago, a few dozen protesters yelled and beat pots and pans.

The opposition ''has committed a few errors and weakened a little,'' said Aez, 60, who was selling her book of anti-Chavez poetry. ''But we're going to start hitting strong once again. . . This man has got to go this year.''

A year after military leaders arrested Chavez last April 11, only to have his supporters sweep him back to power three days later, the opposition has lost much of its fervor and power.

Having failed in its extra-constitutional methods, the opposition is now struggling to remake itself to challenge Chavez. A referendum could take place after mid-August.

Yesterday, a bomb ripped through an office building where government and opposition negotiators had negotiated terms for the referendum, police said. No one was was wounded.

Since the coup, the opposition has tried pressuring Chavez to resign, by organizing huge rallies and marches that culminated in December's two-month strike against the oil industry.

The efforts failed, and Chavez, who won landslide elections in 1998 and 2000 on promises of helping the poor majority, consolidated his power and emerged more popular.

After the coup, Chavez removed opposition military officers and used the failed petroleum strike to fire thousands of opponents from the state petroleum company.

The strike also further undermined an economy which shrank eight percent last year and is predicted to contract by about another 15 percent this year.

The opposition ''adopted a short-term strategy and used up their capital without gaining their objective,'' said Peter Hakim, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a group based in Washington. ''The president is now more firmly in power.''

Meanwhile, five months of dialogue facilitated by the Organization of American States secretary general, Csar Gaviria have produced an agreement on nonviolence and another endorsing democracy and the ground rules for the referendum.

Now, Chavez opponents, who accuse him of ruining the economy, weakening democratic checks and balances, and trying to impose communism, are focusing on winning a referendum, which the constitution allows after Aug. 19, the halfway point of Chavez's six-year term. A Chavez loss in the referendum would lead to new presidential elections.

However, some observers predict that Chavez will use legal mechanisms to block any election he is not confident of winning.

''He gives the impression that he won't permit elections,'' said Alfredo Keller, president of the Caracas polling firm Keller and Associates. ''Chavez can employ a series of obstacles.''

Keller says that Chvez, whose popularity is between 30 and 40 percent, would probably lose a referendum, but that he could win the elections to follow unless the fragmented opposition chooses a single candidate. The many potential opposition candidates score in the teens or lower in voter polls. Part of the reason, many say, is that the opposition has offered few ideas apart from hate for Chavez.

''After the strike, the opposition lost its cohesion,'' said Tarik William Saab, a parliamentarian and the leader of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party. ''They have no program, no support.''

And while Chavez's mostly poor supporters are a minority, they are passionate and dedicated.

''Chavez represents an opportunity to distribute the wealth more fairly, to create a more just society,'' said Francisco Garcia, 34, a construction worker.

Enrique Salas Romer, who lost to Chavez in the 1998 election and may run again, says the opposition coalition is now focusing on a single theme -- the economy. Unemployment is close to 30 percent, according to unofficial estimates.

''We're now entering a new phase in which the debate will center around human rights -- mostly the right to eat,'' Romer said.

But Romer acknowledges that, in the wake of the oil strike, Venezuelans also blame the opposition for the economic crisis.

With the anniversary's arrival, Venezuela's scene has heated up. Both sides have scheduled rallies and memorials for the dozens killed before and after the coup. Those deaths have never been investigated, and on Tuesday a court cleared of homicide charges four Chavez supporters who had been videotaped firing from a Caracas bridge hours before the coup. On Wednesday, a judge ordered the arrest of two former National Guard officers, alleging that they were planning another coup. for April 10, the next day.

Opposition leaders want to make the anniversary the beginning of a new effort to unseat Chavez.

''The opposition is now restructuring and relaunching its strategy,'' said Cesar Perez Vivas, leader of the Christian Socialist Party. ''All the efforts will now be for the revocatory referendum.''

This story ran on page A4 of the Boston Globe on 4/13/2003.