Chavez’s socialist project badly hobbled

CARACAS, Venezuela | A new slogan appearing on the T-shirts and banners of anti-government protesters in Venezuela sums up a growing sentiment about President Hugo Chavez after 11 years in power: “You struck out.”

The list of strikes against Mr. Chavez keeps growing: Latin America’s worst inflation, increased blackouts, runaway violent crime and a scandal involving bankers close to his government.

The socialist-inspired governing model that Mr. Chavez calls his Bolivarian Revolution — named after 18th-century independence leader Simon Bolivar — is weakened and hobbling. And though Mr. Chavez retains close ties with a bloc of leftist governments from Bolivia to Nicaragua, many Latin Americans don’t see Venezuela’s oil-funded populism as viable.

Among Venezuelans, Mr. Chavez’s popularity slipped below 50 percent in polls late last year.

The protest slogan “you struck out” recently appeared on banners held up during Venezuelan baseball games, which Mr. Chavez himself follows closely, and spread to signs and shirts during street demonstrations.

Last week, thousands gathered to denounce the government for yanking the anti-Chavez channel RCTV from cable television, and clashes involving riot police, government supporters and anti-Chavez students left two youths dead. Also last week, Mr. Chavez’s vice president and defense minister, Ramon Carrizalez, resigned citing personal reasons.

State-imposed economic controls, meanwhile, have failed to contain 25 percent inflation, rapidly eroding the earnings of the poor who have been Mr. Chavez’s core of political support. Mr. Chavez’s devaluation of the currency last month — aimed at allowing the government finances to boost public spending — is expected to push prices even higher.

To counter that, Mr. Chavez deployed inspectors and soldiers to check, threatening to expropriate any businesses engaging in price-gouging. Some have been temporarily shut down. The government recently seized a French-controlled retail chain, Exito.

Mr. Chavez’s foes say such measures will only further discourage private investment, which fell 7.6 percent last year amid the nationalization of banks, coffee producers and oil-field service companies.

Critics also decry a banking scandal that broke in November, in which several bankers with close government ties were arrested on charges of financial crimes.

Other problems weighing on Mr. Chavez include:

• A hydropower-dependent electrical grid at risk of a devastating collapse as drought pushes water levels precariously low. The government has imposed electricity rationing, but Mr. Chavez called off rolling outages in Caracas after complaints of mistakes, including power cuts to hospitals and stoplights.

• Declining output by the key oil industry caused in part, experts say, by inadequate investment and inept management.

• A crime rate so alarming that police no longer release complete homicide statistics, even as Venezuelans consistently deem crime their No. 1 concern. The government reported 12,257 homicides in the first 11 months of 2009, putting Venezuela among Latin America’s most violent countries.

Critics say Mr. Chavez recognizes he is in a bind, explaining his increasingly confrontational attitude toward an opposition he apparently sees as an growing threat. They say he’s afraid he could lose control of the National Assembly in elections due in September.

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