AP
Friday, December 1, 2006

Venezuelan intelligence agents have foiled a plot for a sniper attack on the opposition's leading presidential candidate ahead of this Sunday's election, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.

Chavez said "fascist" militants had planned to use a rifle with a telescopic sight to shoot Manuel Rosales during a speech and then blame it on Chavez's government in hopes of derailing Sunday's vote.

"It was to say that Chavez sent them to kill him, and generate chaos," Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace.

The Venezuelan leader used the 3 1/2-hour news conference to laud achievements of his "people's revolution" — citing statistics on lowered unemployment, a decline in poverty and petroleum-fueled economic growth.

He even quoted analysts from major foreign banks as saying the most dangerous scenario for this politically polarized country would be a Chavez election loss.

Chavez also said that upon re-election he would immediately convene a special commission to propose constitutional reforms to be approved by voters, likely including an end to presidential term limits. The current constitution would bar Chavez, in office since 1998, from running again in 2012.

Campaigning ended Thursday with red-clad Chavez supporters parading through downtown Caracas chanting: "Chavez isn't going anywhere!"

Rosales supporters cite polls showing Sunday's balloting will be tight, although an independent AP-Ipsos survey and other recent polls found Chavez with a large lead.

Rosales has called the vote a choice between democracy and an increasingly authoritarian Cuba-style system. Chavez, who was swept into power in 1998 on popular discontent with a corrupt political class, calls Rosales a U.S. lackey.

On the alleged assassination plot, Chavez said authorities had seized the rifle from a vehicle. In answer to a reporter's question later, he said that a military officer had been arrested for meeting with civilian plotters. He did not offer further details.

A high-ranking military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to talk to reporters, confirmed that a naval officer was under investigation.

Rosales' campaign said it had no knowledge of the plan.

"This is a smoke screen. It's to manipulate the people, but nobody believes that," said Timoteao Zambrano, one of Rosales' campaign managers.

"The government is obliged to safeguard the lives of all Venezuelans, and that includes the presidential candidate," Zambrano said. "If something were to happen to our candidate, the government would be responsible."

Chavez has taken advantage of Venezuela's oil wealth to lavish the poor with programs that provide everything from subsidized food to free health care and education.

He persistently accuses the "imperialist" administration of President George W. Bush of trying to topple him. Chavez said his decision to call Bush "the devil" at the United Nations in September wasn't calculated but rather spontaneous: "It came from the heart, and if it came from the heart it's because it's the truth."

Chavez urged his enemies to respect the vote result, calling an upset impossible and suggesting that some opposition activists are planning postelection violence.

"There are two options here — ours and that of the U.S. empire and its flunkeys here, who were the ones who staged the coup," Chavez said, referring to a two-day putsch in 2002. Chavez was returned to power by street protests and loyalists in the military.

Chavez spoke to reporters after Rosales wound up his campaign saying his campaign would be on alert for possible vote fraud.

"It has to be a clean game ... If that happens, all of us will be calm," Rosales told The Associated Press before a rally of hundreds of thousands in Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city and capital of the western state of Zulia. Rosales temporarily stepped down as Zulia's governor to challenge Chavez.

Chavez insisted that his proposal for constitutional changes to do away with presidential term limits was anything but dictatorial, noting that French presidents have served long periods in power.

Venezuela has become increasingly polarized along class lines, with the wealthy supporting Rosales, the poor backing Chavez and a fractured middle class.

Shoppers are packing supermarkets to stock up on supplies, fearful that Sunday's outcome could prompt street protests and violence.