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| Caribbean-Latin America | |||||
| Chavez's challenger rallies thousands in Caracas | |||||
| 2006-08-19 | |||||
| President Hugo Chavez's challenger in the Venezuelan presidential race, Manuel Rosales, rallied tens of thousands of supporters in the streets of Caracas, promising to combat poverty that has deepened on his rival's watch. Rosales, 52, a popular social democratic governor of western Zulia state, for a second time, was picked this month by a coalition of 26 parties and organizations to stand against Chavez, a leftist populist who has aligned himself politically with communist-ruled Cuba. "I am the candidate of the Venezuelan fatherland," Rosales said, promising a platform centered on social justice. He said that should he win the December 3 election, "not one more barrel of oil, not a dollar more, is leaving Venezuela as long as there is poverty and misery in this country."
Even as oil prices have soared beyond 60 dollars a barrel, Venezuela's poor have grown to number 70-72 percent of the population, he says. It was a jab at Chavez who has financially supported Cuba with subsidized oil and engaged in many nuances of "petro-diplomacy."
Chavez, who spent two years in jail for leading a failed military coup in 1992, was first elected in 1998. He was re-elected by a landslide in July 2000 for a six-year term, and survived both an April 2002 coup and a 2004 recall vote.
Rosales, who has been a career politician for the past 27 years, is one of only two opposition governors serving in Venezuela's 24 states. With 3.2 million residents, Zulia is Venezuela's most populous state. It is also rich in agricultural products and oil. | |||||
| Posted by:lotp |