VENEZUELA: An estimated one million government supporters gathered in Caracas this weekend to defend President Hugo Chavez and his "Bolivarian" revolution, doubling the attendance figures for an opposition rally held last week.
The opposition march coincided with the halfway point in Chavez's presidential mandate. Meanwhile, a coalition of anti-Chavez groups handed in two million signatures in support of a recall referendum to oust the president.
President Chavez has launched popular health and education programmes, distributed land to the poor and survived a coup attempt and general strike organised by militant middle-class opposition groups.
"Those coup plotters won't let Chavez govern", said one government supporter at Saturday's rally. "Things might be better now if they'd given him a chance."
Chavez supporters danced in the streets and accused powerful business and media lobbies of sabotaging the president's political project. The country's business lobby is firmly anti-Chavez, accusing the government of stirring up class warfare and undermining property rights. The general strike, which lasted from December 2002 to March 2003, has crippled the economy and sent unemployment spiralling to 20 per cent.
"The flexible Chavez is old history," said the Venezuelan leader, in high spirits at the head of the huge rally. President Chavez admitted that he had been too soft on television stations who backed violent efforts to oust him. "I have given orders to the army to crush any fresh attempts by media outlets to goad people into acts of hatred."
The opposition needs over two million signatures to call a recall referendum. But there is little hope of a recall vote before 2004 as Venezuela's legislature has yet to agree on nominees for a new electoral authority which would oversee the electoral process.