Venezuela drenches as local elections draw near

, November 21, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- As the end of the rainy season is in sight and final preparations are being made to make the country ready to vote on Sunday, Venezuela has been inundated with rain, causing nine deaths, mudslides, electricity failures, road blockages, and flooding.  The president, Hugo Chavez, has called for calm and for confidence in the public institutions to handle the emergency. He said that the Civil Protection bodies and the firemen and women have been working on and evaluating the situation.  The municipality of Baruta in Caracas has been one of the worst affected areas, and the mayor there, Henrique Capriles has declared a state of emergency in order to “facilitate attention and deploy all our emergency services and infrastructure.”  500 people from around Caracas have been transferred to the La Ciudadela refuge.  The refuge was completed in 2005 and includes medical attention facilities, areas for children, toilets, and an eating area. From the early hours of Friday morning government teams were out on the Prado del Este highway, in the Miranda part of Caracas, clearing debris and mud that was obstructing it. The governor, Diosdado Cabello assured that the workers would continue with the clean up through out the day as well as working to prevent any new mud slides in the area. He also highlighted the participation of the organized communities who had been working all night with the security units. “One of the most important added values of all this is that the communal councils have been facilitating the work.”  Chavez agreed that the communities “have to be the protagonists of their own solutions,” and has also ordered the immediate execution of a special plan to help the small businesses that were affected by the intense rain on Thursday. He said that resources would be delivered by next week to the most affected.  According to Carlos Sierra, the Bolivarian Federation of Students is helping those affected by rain in the state of Vargas. A group of about 30 youth stayed on watch all of Thursday night and plan to continue as necessary.  The executive vice president, Ramon Carrizales, criticised the way the private media had handled the rain problems, “as if they are celebrating these facts and looking to somehow gain electorally from them.”  According to the Venezuelan National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology the heavy rain is expected to continue over the weekend, including on Sunday, the day of the regional elections, due to an “atmospheric instability in the intertropical convergence zone.”    The worst rain, and therefore a few electricity problems, is expected in the south west of the country. Venezuela experiences a rainy season from May until December

The Venezuelan government says President Hugo Chavez's public approval rate is as high as 70%. While that figure may be over-generous, there can be little doubt that, despite the ups and downs of the past 10 years, the left-wing leader still enjoys an unprecedented level of backing from the majority of Venezuelans.  So why are Sunday's state and municipal elections being seen as such a test of President Chavez's support in the country?  The vote is not supposed to be about him. These elections are to choose new mayors and new state governors for 23 states in Venezuela plus the capital, Caracas. In theory, this should be the voters' judgement on how well the current local leaders have performed - on whether the streets are clean, whether it is safe to walk home alone at night, whether the local police force is corrupt or not.  Last December, President Chavez narrowly lost a vote for the first time since coming to office in 1999.   He had proposed a raft of constitutional changes - the most controversial of which was a plan to remove the cap on presidential terms, which would have allowed him to stand indefinitely. His detractors immediately seized on the result as evidence that his support was on the wane, and that the basis of his so-called 21st Century socialist revolution had deserted him. A year later, and that analysis looks misguided. Judging from the opinion polls and the vast crowds turning out to hear him speak in recent days, the president is still as popular as ever with his core supporters. Instead it seems that less radical voters are beginning to draw a distinction between their unswerving support for President Chavez as a national leader and their questions about the way their local communities are being run. Mr Chavez may enjoy strong popular support. Many of his local representatives do not. As a result, the president is leaving nothing to chance. Over the past few weeks he has been criss-crossing the country, appearing at rallies in all the key states to support his local allies in person. Mr Chavez has told voters that what he called "his candidates" must win on Sunday to preserve the integrity of the socialist revolution and guarantee the future of the "misiones" - social development programmes such as the health initiative "Barrio Adentro" (Into the Neighbourhood). ...Observers This election is also the first time that the PSUV has put up candidates under its party banner. In 2007, the government brought together all its disparate allies from a range of parties loyal to President Chavez together under the single umbrella of the PSUV. In part, Sunday's vote will be the first indication of how well that broad coalition has been received. Meanwhile, the president has accused the opposition parties of already preparing their accusations of electoral fraud should government candidates win in the most marginal votes.  About 130 international electoral observers will be on hand to oversee that the vote is free and fair, and both sides will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the electoral violence seen in Nicaragua this month after disputed local election results.  Despite the personal endorsements by President Chavez, it seems likely that a number of states will change hands. In private, even government officials are expecting some losses.  In 2004, Chavez supporters won 22 of the 24 available positions.  Since then, a number of those governors have withdrawn their support for Mr Chavez, such as Ramon Martinez in the state of Sucre. If these "dissident" governors hold on to their positions and the opposition takes a few of the more marginal states, the political map of Venezuela will have altered - irrespective of the strong personal support for President Chavez.