Opposition ‘plot’ to oust Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Published Sep 27, 2011

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Caracas - Venezuela's opposition forces signed a pact on Monday aimed at ousting ailing leftist firebrand President Hugo Chavez in next year's election, pledging to run just one candidate against him.

“We the signatories of this agreement unanimously support the candidate who is elected in a February 12 primary as the single candidate of the Democratic Unity coalition,” read the agreement.

Beyond backing a unity candidate in the 2012 presidential election, “this alliance is aiming to be a long-term political and social force in line with the problems facing this nation”, the text added.

Leading opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez made his candidacy official on Saturday, registering to run against Chavez, who is seeking a third term but has just had a fourth round of chemotherapy as he battles cancer.

“Today, I am letting you know… that I am committed to defeating him at the ballot box on October 7, 2012,” Lopez, a 40-year-old economist, told hundreds of followers in Caracas.

A charismatic politician with a winning smile, Lopez comes armed with a master's degree from Harvard and experience as mayor of the upscale Caracas municipality of Chacao.

Other next-generation leaders include Miranda governor Henrique Capriles, 38, who shares Lopez's telenovela-star looks; Pablo Perez, 42, governor of the oil state of Zulia; and opposition lawmaker Maria Corina Machado, 44.

Chavez, however, remains a formidable opponent. The 57-year-old president maintains a 50 percent approval rating, even though he has been physically weakened after Cuban doctors removed a cancerous tumour from his pelvic area on June 20 in Havana.

The omnipresent Chavez has been forced to decrease his public appearances as he undergoes chemotherapy, but insists that next year he will be healthy enough to defeat the opposition “by a knock-out”.

Chavez, a leftist ex-paratrooper, has been in power since 1999.

A staunch and vocal critic of the United States, he has used his country's petrodollars in large part to become the region's leading sponsor of leftist cooperation agreements, subsidising oil distribution and helping prop up the Cuban regime, the Americas' only one-party Communist government.

Lopez was banned from politics in 2005, when the office of the Comptroller General accused him of corruption.

The case was never brought to trial, and on September 16 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared the Venezuelan ruling invalid. - Sapa-AFP

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