Hugo Chávez: Man With No Limits?

But despite his authoritarian image, Chávez is not a dictator nor a 21st century Castro. He's been democratically elected three times, subjected himself to a 2004 recall vote (which he defeated) and permits a noisy opposition press. But John Walsh, senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank, says Chávez's political hegemony already threatens checks and balances on the government. Like other analysts, Walsh points to the hundreds of opposition politicos, like López, barred from running in regional elections last year due to obscure corruption charges leveled by Chávez's government.

The opposition, whose leadership includes holdovers from the corrupt élite Chávez overthrew, has done little to offer a viable political alternative. Its weakness is another reason Chavistas insist their hero should be able to run again. "Chávez is the only leader who can hold all the nation's poles together,' says Tarek William Saab, the pro-Chavez governor of Anzoategui state on Venezuela's eastern coast. "His opponents are panicked because they know they can't win if he's the candidate." Former Chávez Information Minister Andrés Izarra says fear that an opposition leader could win the next presidential race if Chávez isn't in the running will rev up the Chavista machine on Feb. 15. "The base will see Chavismo more directly at risk than it was in 2007. This time it will mobilize," says Izarra. Chávez warns that an opposition victory in 2012 would prompt "a war."

The immediate threat, though, is economic. Venezuela relies on oil and gas for 93% of its export revenues. López says Chávez is rushing the term-limits question to the polls again before the drop in oil prices hammers the economy and shrinks his checkbook. Inflation is more than 30%, and the country faces shortages of staples such as milk. Chávez insists his government has stored away reserves to cushion the looming pain and recently pledged that "even if the price of oil drops to zero," the social largesse will keep flowing.

Yet even as Chávez puts a gloss on the economic outlook, some Chavistas wonder if venality has seeped into his own government — including millions of dollars in alleged payoffs to officials described last year at the Miami trial of a wealthy Venezuelan businessman. (Chávez officials deny the charges.) "Chávez needs to know that we see the tremendous houses and cars these so-called socialists have," says Isabel de Lemus, 70, a shop owner in La Silsa who sits on a revolutionary community council.

People close to Chávez concede privately that the corruption issue has hurt him. Perhaps that's why he recently warned supporters who have benefited from the oil boom that "this isn't a revolution of Hummers." As for the soaring crime rate, Chávez says that a major overhaul of the police and judiciary is coming. He'll have to hope that's enough to eke out a victory in a few days' time. "We will recognize the result, as we always have, whatever it is," he said last week. And if it doesn't go his way, he may just keep trying until it does.

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