Chavez vows to radicalize after Venezuela election

CARACAS, Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez  vowed to “radicalize” his socialist revolution even further  after legislative elections that gave the opposition one of its  strongest showings during his more than 11 years in power.
He started  yesterday by announcing the expropriation of  land owned by the Venezuelan agricultural company Agroislena  and vowing to hasten the nationalization of land held by the  British meat products company Vestey Foods Group.

Chavez’s ruling Socialist Party won last weekend’s vote by  a slim margin, taking 5.45 million votes or 48.9 percent  compared with 5.33 million votes or 47.9 percent for the newly  united Democratic Unity umbrella group.

The result lifted the optimism of the opposition, which now  sees a chance to unseat Chavez in 2012 presidential elections.

Investors and analysts are waiting to see the reaction of a  man who has in the past come out of elections by nationalizing  swathes of industry, including millions of acres of  agricultural land, and attacking private capital.

“We are going to continue forward, democratically  radicalizing the socialist revolution because it is necessary,”  Chavez said late on Saturday to a television audience.

He dismissed the opposition celebration of a moral victory  as “15 minutes of drunkenness.”

Despite their thin overall vote advantage, the Socialists  took a healthy majority in the National Assembly — 97 seats  compared to 65 for Democratic Unity. But the ruling party fell  short of the two-thirds needed to pass major legislation and  make appointments to key bodies such as the Supreme Court.

Chavez rejected the idea of seeking to mend relations with  private enterprise, announcing the nationalization of 250,000  hectares (618,000 acres) this month and saying, “There will be  no deal with the bourgeoisie.”

Chavez repeatedly targeted the latifundia, or large  landowners, during his regular Sunday television show “Alo  Presidente,” saying Agroislena was now public property.

He also referred to Compania Inglesa, a Venezuelan unit of  Vestey, a multinational held for four generations by Britain’s  Vestey family.

“All of the lands of the so-called Compania Inglesa will be  nationalized now. I don’t want to lose another day,” Chavez  said from the agricultural state of Guarico.

Chavez had announced in August that Venezuela would buy a  group of large farms and thousands of cattle from Vestey, which  had four farms taken over in 2005.

Venezuela-watchers had wondered what areas of the private  sector Chavez might target next, with most speculation  concentrated on greater control of the health, food,  agricultural or banking sectors.

The election results came as Venezuela’s oil-rich economy  continues to shrink while most others in Latin American have  been recovering from the global economic crisis of 2008 and  2009. Inflation is running at nearly 30 percent annually.