Chávez Allies Win Big, but Opposition Secures Key Posts

The government then marshaled its formidable oil-generated resources to support Chavista candidates, as those allied with the president are known.

Opposition candidates said the potent state media shunned or maligned their campaigns while giving maximum exposure to government candidates. In recent days, Chávez also threatened to arrest a leading opposition leader, Zulia Gov. Manuel Rosales, and order tanks into the streets of Carabobo state.

Luis Vicente León, a pollster for the Caracas polling firm Datanalisis, said the machinations and bluster demonstrate the importance of the vote to Chávez and the future of his socialist movement in Venezuela. Although Chávez loyalists control all but seven seats in the National Assembly, Leon said the president needs overwhelming electoral superiority across Venezuela to have the political capital to call for reforms to permit him to run for reelection.

"If Chávez wins this regional election," Leon recently said, "he is going to ask for the constitutional referendum very soon, because he is going to take advantage of this win."

On Sunday, Chávez sharply toned down his rhetoric as he stopped to talk to reporters moments after voting in a pro-government neighborhood of high-rise apartment buildings near the presidential palace. He touted what he called the "vigorous" nature of Venezuelan democracy and said his foes and the foreign media were unfairly characterizing him as a tyrant.

"They compare me with Stalin, they compare me with Hitler," Chávez said. "I am Hugo, Hugo Chávez. I firmly believe in democracy, I believe in these people, these people who have reelected me."

To be sure, Datanalisis, the polling firm, said one of its recent polls put Chávez's popularity at 58 percent, an increase from earlier this year. And determined supporters like Susana Zambrano say they would never support the opposition.

"They know that through the vote they will never defeat Chávez, because it was 40 years of exclusion," she said, referring to the period before Chávez was first elected president. "Fortunately, the people have Chávez. He's the hope of the Venezuelan people."

But polls have also shown that although overall support levels remain high, confidence that the government can resolve chronic problems, such as crime and Latin America's highest inflation rate, have fallen steadily from early in his presidency.

The opposition maneuvered to exploit those concerns in urban areas, with politicians accusing government officials of having done little or nothing to resolve those and other problems.

In Petare, a vast slum here that had long been a stronghold for Chávez, the opposition candidate for mayor of the district, Carlos Ocariz, was leading in the polls against the government candidate.

"The insecurity is a disaster," Erica Cordoba said. "Everyday there's muggings, the robbing of cars. Horrible. We would like to have a mayor who worries about that."