Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): President Hugo Chavez' frequent resort to insults and epithets, unproven allegations and what his critics see as his disregard for electoral etiquette has finally become an issue as the campaign for the regional elections enters its final month. With the opposition on the warpath after a string of accusations against Zulia state Governor Manuel Rosales over the weekend, National Electoral Council (CNE) director Vicente Diaz announced Tuesday that he would press his colleagues for an "administrative" investigation into whether the president was behaving impartially.
Diaz is the CNE's resident stickler for the rules, and he noted that Article 210 of the Suffrage Law and Article 145 of the Constitution stipulated that the president, as a public official, was at the service of the state and not a political cause.
The moot point raised by Diaz is that Chavez isn't actually running for office himself. As a citizen, he has political rights, but not when acting in a public function.
On Saturday, at a public meeting of business executives in Zulia, Chavez had let rip by accusing Rosales of being the "link and financier of a group of Venezuelan military terrorists who are in Central America, protected by some governments and the CIA." These "lamentable groups" were operating out of Zulia, he claimed, in cohorts with Rosales. "He's trying to kill me," Chavez' extraordinary outburst continued. "I'm not going to kill him, I'm not killing anyone, but yes, I am the head of state. I have decided to make a prisoner of Manuel Rosales" – who's running for mayor of the Zulia state capital, Maracaibo.
The president called for action from the Attorney General and the Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ), and then added a long list of the governor's other alleged offenses including owning 11 properties, links with mafias and drug traffickers and possessing armories of weapons. On Monday, Rosales’, party, Un Nuevo Tiempo, announced that it intended to sue Chavez for defamation.
"You, the president, understands that neither the people of Zulia nor the Venezuelan people in any of the other states or municipalities where we will go up against each other on Nov. 23 is frightened of your blackmail," said UNT Secretary-General Gerardo Blyde.
The Chavez camp decided to get its retaliation in first. Giancarlo Di Martino, the candidate for Zulia governor nominated by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), on Tuesday went with a group of followers to the State Prosecutors Office to denounce Rosales with allegations about property ownership. By now, the number had gone up to 14 and involved the use of front men. Di Martino declared there were "reasons to investigate Rosales."
Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz vowed there would be a rapid investigation of the governor. The question was whether this would pave the way for Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian to ban Rosales from running for elected office on the grounds that he now faced legal action, an argument Russián has used in proscribing 272 aspirants for office.
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