Venezuelans vote on Sunday in the toughest election President Hugo Chavez has faced in almost 14 years in power after fresh-faced rival Henrique Capriles electrified the country’s opposition.
Chavez, 58, retains a loyal following among the country’s poor, who have propelled him to easy victories in past elections, but 40-year-old Capriles has narrowed the gap in opinion polls after an energetic door-to-door national campaign.
Weakened by a bout with cancer, the president stepped up his campaign this week, even dancing in the rain at a Caracas rally on Thursday as he pleaded for another six-year term to seal his oil-funded socialist revolution.
Chavez, a fierce US critic, is a highly polarising figure who survived a coup in 2002 and became popular with the long-neglected poor for using the country’s vast oil wealth to fund health and education programs.
Mentored by Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Chavez has become the leading voice of Latin America’s left, railing against the US “empire” while befriending Iran and Syria. He also has used petro-dollars and cut-rate oil deals to build a network of diplomatic allies around the region.
Facing his biggest election challenge, Chavez has admitted making mistakes, vowing to “become a better president” if re-elected.
The business-friendly, centre-left Capriles has hammered Chavez over the country’s regular power outages, food shortages and runaway murder rate, which has risen to 50 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.