Et tu, Washington Post!

Another one "sin desperdicio"!!! The Post chimes in.

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The Next Ballot for Mr. Chávez

He lost in the U.N. General Assembly, but a crucial vote is still to come -- at home.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

HUGO CHÁVEZ is on a losing streak. This week he was forced to admit defeat in his attempt to win a seat for Venezuela on the U.N. Security Council, an embarrassing end to a campaign in which he had barnstormed the world and promised hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to countries that agreed to support him. In the past few months, three candidates backed by Mr. Chávez have failed to win in Latin American presidential elections, most recently in Ecuador. In each case the connection to the Venezuelan populist touched off a backlash from local voters.

Mr. Chávez has a shot at success this weekend in Nicaragua, where former dictator

Daniel Ortega hopes to eke out a first-round plurality over two other presidential candidates with the help of heavy Venezuelan subsidies and some ham-fisted politicking by the Bush administration.

The real test for Latin America's would-be revolutionary leader comes in four weeks, when he will stand for reelection as president. If Mr. Chávez wins an overwhelming mandate for a new six-year-term -- as he has frequently predicted -- he will almost certainly accelerate a concentration of power that has already given him personal control over Venezuela's legislature and judiciary as well as the once-independent state oil company. But the president is facing a surprisingly strong challenge from a state governor, Manuel Rosales, who has been energetically touring the countryside. While polls generally show Mr. Chávez ahead, some give him scarcely more than 50 percent of the vote.

That means that Venezuela's election will be one of the most important in the country's history, not only for its result but also for the way it is held. A free election, even if won by Mr. Chávez, could temper his behavior. So far, however, the chances for a fair vote look mixed at best. The government has invited observers from the European Union, the Organization of American States and the Carter Center to observe the election and the vote count, and it is negotiating access with at least one Venezuelan monitoring group.

But Mr. Chávez is taking increasingly brazen measures to tilt the playing field. Last week his government announced that 1 million state workers will receive annual bonuses equal to three months' pay immediately rather than at the end of the year. A monitoring group, Súmate, reported that Mr. Chávez's campaign time on the five national television networks exceeded that of his opponent by a 22-to-1 margin. The government's oil minister, meanwhile, delivered a speech declaring it "a crime, a counterrevolutionary act" for any manager of the company to oppose the mobilization of its 40,000 workers for Mr. Chávez. When the opposition campaign protested, Mr. Chávez threatened to revoke the licenses of television stations that reported on the controversy.

Whether such threats are carried out will depend in large part on whether the democratic governments represented by the OAS and the European Union resist Mr. Chávez's attempts to stack the election in his favor. Whether it overturns or prolongs the rule of a polarizing president, it is crucial that Venezuela's vote be free and fair.