MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan presidential hopeful registered as candidate

Opposition presidential hopeful Manuel Rosales was registered Saturday by more than two-dozen political parties as candidate in Venezuela's Dec. 3 presidential election.

Rosales, who has provisionally stepped down as governor of the oil-rich northwestern state of Zulia to make his electoral bid, represents the sector of the opposition that agreed to designate a single candidate and join forces against incumbent President Hugo Chavez, a controversial leftist-populist who has been in power since 1998 and is seeking re-election for a second time.

His candidacy was registered following a rally in downtown Caracas that attracted several thousands of people, including a sizeable number from other regions of the country.

Before arriving at the offices of the CNE electoral council, Rosales gave a speech in which he criticized Chavez' statist economic model and combative foreign policy rhetoric and promised to do away with unemployment and poverty by distributing oil income among the country's most destitute.

"Seventy-two percent of the people live badly and I carry that (figure) in my soul and that has motivated me in this struggle. And I tell you that I'm going to eliminate poverty in Venezuela because I'm going to distribute the oil wealth among the people," Rosales said.

He added that, after winning the election, he will form "an alliance with domestic and foreign investors to give them confidence and so there is productive employment for all." Regarding his foreign policy, Rosales said that "I'm not going to go around looking for fights with any president nor am I going to sit at anyone's feet," an apparent reference to Chavez's recent visit to a bed-ridden Fidel Castro, who is recovering from surgery to stop intestinal bleeding.

Chavez also has gotten into verbal spats with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Peruvian President Alan Garcia and regularly rails against Washington's foreign policy, although Venezuela is also a huge supplier of oil to the United States.

Rosales also made reference to young people, pledging that room would be made for them at universities and that there would be equality of opportunity" for all regardless of financial background.

"I'm not going to give rifles to young people but rather computers and scholarships so they can be great (leaders) in the country," the opposition candidate said in another jab at Chavez, who last year bought 100,000 assault rifles from Russia.

In addition to his A New Time party, Rosales is also backed by the Christian Democrat Copei, Justice First, Movement toward Socialism and more than two-dozen smaller political groupings.

Yet the sector now uniting behind Rosales does not represent all of Venezuela's opposition.

Leaders of Accion Democratica, one of the two big parties that dominated Venezuelan politics for decades prior to the advent of Chavez, are calling for a boycott of the December election. They claim the electoral system is rigged in favor of Chavez, a self-styled "revolutionary" who is despised by many members of the country's middle and upper classes.

Meanwhile, other anti-Chavez aspirants remain in the race, including entrepreneur Roberto Smith and raunchy comedian Benjamin Rausseo.

Some 16 million Venezuelans are eligible to cast ballots in the election, in which voters will choose their president for the 2007-2013 term.

Polls show that Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel whose support comes from the poor and working class in this oil-rich but deeply divided country, will win the balloting in a landslide, as he did in the 1998 and 2000 presidential elections.