How Do You See About The Venzuela's Presidential Election?

HUGO CHAVEZ seems assured of winning a further six-year term as Venezuela's president. In the run up to elections on Sunday December 3rd, most opinion polls give the former army officer turned revolutionary socialist a commanding lead over his only serious rival, Manuel Resales. Nonetheless, Mr. Resales, the centre-left governor of the western state of Zulia, has done a remarkable job of pulling together the fractious opposition. He has attracted the biggest opposition demonstrations since a recall referendum in August 2004 failed to unseat the president, sparking angry but never substantiated claims of vote fraud.

But Mr. Chavez has some powerful advantages. He is an instinctive political communicator with an almost magical rapport with his supporters. He is reaping the benefits of a huge oil windfall and the economy is growing at 9% a year. Mr. Chavez has channeled some of the oil money to social programmed (called "missions") which provides health care, education and subsidized food in poor areas that were previously neglected by a creaking welfare state.

The president will "push forward his project to control society via a form of totalitarianism," says Teodoro Petkoff, a newspaper editor who gave up his own presidential ambitions to support Mr. Rosales. He accuses Mr. Chavez of politicizing the armed forces, using education as a tool for indoctrination and bringing even sport and culture under state control, Mr. Petkoff does not anticipate big surprises, such as the abolition of private property, but he worries about economic mismanagement, inflation and industrial decline.