Venezuelan Students Spearhead Opposition To Chavez

The opposition is hoping new energy from a popular but inexperienced student movement can overcome the lead that polls give Chavez.

After years of losing most of their battles with President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's opposition parties are letting student activists lead the campaign to stop the socialist leader extending his rule.

The fractured opposition is hoping new energy from a popular but inexperienced student movement that emerged two years ago can overcome the slight lead that polls give Chavez ahead of Sunday's referendum on allowing him to run for re-election in 2012.

Even if the opposition tactic fails to defeat Chavez, it helps it move away from a tarnished past that includes a bungled coup against Chavez, a failed recall referendum and decades of corrupt politics in the OPEC nation.

Coupled with some wins in November's regional elections by rising stars of the opposition, the students have helped freshen the image of the anti-Chavez movement.

"Venezuelan society recognizes us as the new generation, that's one of the strengths we have," said Paulo Nino, 22, a medical student at Venezuela's Central University in Caracas.

Chavez dismisses the student leaders as spoiled "little rich kids" but they deny they are part of an elite and insist they are fighting to protect Venezuela's democracy by preventing Chavez from staying in office for life.

Public approval of the student movement is near 80 percent, according to respected pollster Datanalisis, compared to less than 10 percent approval for opposition parties still associated with the corrupt politics of the pre-Chavez era.

Chavez, who this month celebrated ten years in office and remains popular among the poor, says he needs another decade to consolidate his self-styled socialist revolution. Critics call him a strongman who wants to stay in office for life and uses state funds for his own campaigns.

A win on Sunday for Chavez would let him stay in office for as long as he keeps winning elections, and boost his leadership of a group of anti-U.S. governments in Latin America.

If he loses, he would have to leave office in early 2013 unless he can find another way to change the constitution.

A recent Datanalisis poll showed Chavez with around 51.5 percent support ahead of the referendum but the opposition is optimistic it can overturn that narrow lead.

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER WIN

Student leaders have held rallies and marches and will join teams of opposition representatives at polling stations in the hope of repeating the 2007 defeat of a package of constitutional reforms that included the current proposal.

The campaign also includes wooing those Venezuelans who still support Chavez but are skeptical of his re-election crusade, particularly as complaints grow over unchecked crime and festering piles of trash.

"We cannot let this be seen as a struggle between political parties and Chavez," said opposition advisor Enrique Marquez. Instead, he said the parties want to "stimulate the vanguard of democratic society ... which is the student movement."

Student marches have at times turned violent in clashes with police, fueling Chavez's criticisms that they are seeking to destabilize his government. But he held a cordial telephone conversation this month with a former student leader -- a tacit acknowledgment of the movement's importance.

Even invigorated with new faces, the opposition lacks a clear political alternative to Chavez's oil-financed populism and has no leader that can rally his adversaries.

Bickering between parties and factions has also slowed the opposition's effort to develop a door-to-door voter drive, while Chavez's party has created a powerful political machine.

Chavez has deployed an arsenal of state resources for the "Yes" camp, such as colossal campaign posters and huge speakers that blare out advertisements to back him.

A student rally this month in the southern city of Ciudad Guayana highlighted the contrast in funding.

They used shoe polish to daub slogans on car windows and had such weak sound equipment it couldn't be heard from even a few yards (meters) away.

"It's no secret that the president has an unfair advantage, he has all the country's money," said student organizer Gabriel Osorio. "How can we compete with that when we have to ask people on the street for money to photocopy flyers?"