For Chávez, Firm Rule and Favors

Venezuelan President Expected to Win Easily in Sunday Vote

Ramon Antonio Perez said he lost his subway job because he opposes Chávez. (Juan Forero - The Washington Post)

CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 30 -- This country's populist president, Hugo Chávez, beloved by his followers, has achieved a cultlike status by mixing his considerable charisma with a free-spending policy of funneling billions into social programs. But that hasn't stopped his oil-rich government from using every tool at its disposal to ensure that voters flock to its side in Sunday's presidential election.

Ramon Antonio Perez, 41, found that out the hard way. Never shy about expressing his dislike for the government, Perez said he was fired from his job in the publicly run Caracas subway system after ignoring repeated warnings about his political activities. "From night to day," he said, "I've been left with nothing."

At the state oil company, a young lawyer -- also opposed to the government -- described how the red T-shirts government supporters wear are handed out in bulk to workers, who are then expected to don them for pro-Chávez rallies.

"When everyone is in red and going to rallies and you don't go along, then you begin to worry," said the lawyer, who asked that she not be identified for fear of being fired.

A secretly taped video disseminated by the opposition in early November shows Rafael Ramírez, the president of the company, telling workers in a packed auditorium that there could not be "the tiniest doubt that the new Pdvsa is with Chávez," using the abbreviation for Petróleos de Venezuela. Ramírez also says a manager was fired for permitting a plane carrying Chávez's main opponent in the election, Manuel Rosales, to land on a company-operated airstrip.

"What's that about?" Ramírez says in the video. "Is it that people are getting crazy? Is it true then that we have infiltration from the squalid ones here, the enemies of the revolution?"

Chávez is poised to easily win a second six-year term in which his government will seek to solidify its control over the private sector and accelerate its redistribution of wealth to the country's poor. Aside from two pollsters closely tied to the opposition, a dozen polls -- including some by anti-Chávez analysts -- show Chávez winning by a wide margin.

Government officials say the polls underscore the wellspring of support that comes from the poor barrios where Chávez has drawn much of his strength since his emergence as a restless army colonel whose first attempt at taking power, in a 1992 coup, failed. Since then, he has won a string of elections: the 1998 landslide that put him in office; referendums that led to a new constitution and a new National Assembly; and a 2004 vote that dealt a stunning blow to an opposition effort to recall him.

"This is not a dictatorship," Chávez told reporters Thursday. "This is a democracy."

Few outside of the most radical opposition leaders argue that Chávez's magnetic persona and the state's focus on social programs haven't helped propel him from one victory to the next. But political analysts here and in the United States say the Venezuelan government has also grown in influence and power through a system that mixes the trappings of democracy with old-fashioned patronage, a touch of intimidation and the theatrical warnings Chávez frequently makes about the United States, pronouncements that keep his supporters in a state of agitation.

And though Venezuela's press remains one of Latin America's feistiest, and its anti-government leaders rail against Chávez, limits have been imposed. A 2004 law aimed at broadcast media has prompted self-censorship, journalists here say. Another law makes it illegal for anyone to show disrespect for public officials. Some opposition leaders, notably in the stridently anti-Chávez group Sumate, have been threatened with jail.

With few checks and balances, the president has overwhelming control of every state institution and makes virtually all key decisions. The 167-member National Assembly, which has not had an opposition politician in its ranks since the president's foes boycotted last year's elections, and the courts are little more than adornments. The military is represented in ministries and departments across the government, from city halls to the apparatus that runs elections.