Election campaign closes; considered one of the most important elections of recent years

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): The election campaign officially closed as the sun was still stirring itself at six o'clock on Friday morning as Venezuela headed towards what could arguably be seen as one of the most important elections of recent years. At issue, as always, is President Hugo Chavez even though he's not running for office. For friend and foe, he's still the dominant figure on the political scene.

The big question was whether Sunday's vote would produce a repeat of last December's referendum defeat of his far-reaching proposals to reform the Constitution in Chavez' first electoral reverse since he was first elected to office in late 1998.

Were his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to lose the election, this could be depicted as confirmation that Chavez' political magic wand wasn't working as it once did, that the shine had gone from his charisma and popular appeal. In the wake of the referendum, opposition activists said, a second defeat, however modest, would suggest Chávez was going the way of most elected leaders in established democracies, in which it's quite normal that politicians, however popular, eventually tend to lose their winning powers, or voters see the government as tired and think it's time for a change.

On the other hand, were the Chavez candidates to emerge holding their constituencies -- and all the more so if they wrested states or municipalities from the opposition -- the president would not only have been endorsed by the electorate. His position would be strengthened.
Opposition activists privately concede this would be a disaster for them, and not just because it might open the gates for Chavez to resume his project of governing the country indefinitely. Whether he could use another referendum to remove the ban on more than two consecutive terms in office is a moot point.

At the back of many minds, there were two thoughts. One centered on the opposition's skepticism about the neutrality of the National Electoral Council (CNE). In the other, the ghost of past political violence and disorder during or after the vote hovered in the background, despite the deployment of 150,000 troops at or near polling stations.

Curiously, in the final hours of the campaign, both sides focused on opposition sympathizers. The PSUV ostentatiously called on opposition leaders to "orientate" their followers in a barely disguised preemptive bid to shift the blame for any disorder that might happen. This prompted an infuriated opposition activist to mutter that if anybody had caused trouble in the past, it had been the president's supporters or chavistas. The president has predicted a sweeping victory for PSUV candidates across the country, but it's remembered that he bitterly lambasted his own supporters after the referendum defeat.

Opposition leaders focused on getting out the vote, pleading with the public not to stay at home. But after Thursday's torrential downpour and amid forecasts of more to come, the prospect of getting drenched in a downpour while standing in a long queue at a polling station perhaps wasn't that appealing.