Chavez's foes decide on primary

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CARACAS, VENEZUELA
Candidates see joint effort as best chance for victory

Candidates who will oppose Hugo Chavez in Venezuela's December presidential election have decided to participate in a winner-take-all primary Aug. 13 to decide on a single candidate whom they all promise to support.

It is a measure of the opposition's weakness that politicians from the nine disparate parties decided on the joint primary in a bid to galvanize an opposition that has largely given up hope of defeating Chavez.

Major opposition parties boycotted last December's congressional elections after accusing Chavez of rigging the system. Chavez backers said the opposition merely was acknowledging it probably would lose.

Polls show Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia state, and Julio Borges, a former assemblyman and TV show host, are the leading opposition figures, but both still trail by a wide margin.

Chavez has parlayed his country's enormous oil wealth into a welfare program he calls "socialism for the 21st century." Some 3.5 million people are thought to receive cash monthly from the government through health and education initiatives, retail and industrial cooperatives, and other programs.

Critics say Chavez is an autocrat who dispenses largesse at his discretion.

Although a strong favorite to win a third term, Chavez is not invincible, pollsters say.