Illness seen binding Chavez more to Venezuela poor

Hugo Chavez

CARACAS, (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez’s cancer  ordeal has revived his emotional connection with Venezuela’s  masses, meaning opponents will struggle to beat him at next  year’s election, a U.S. biographer believes.

Having worked in Venezuela as a reporter then written a  well-received 2007 biography “Hugo!,” Bart Jones has a closer  perspective than most on the former soldier whose nearly  13-year socialist rule has polarized opinion around the world.

Though in the dark like almost everyone else on the exact  nature of Chavez’s illness, Jones, 53, said the saga had  breathed new life into his powerful links with the poor.

Hugo Chavez

“It devastated his supporters. They almost felt like they  might be left orphans. But it reminded them they have very much  an emotional, spiritual connection with Chavez,” said Jones.

“He’s not just a president for his supporters, he’s really  more of a mystical, mythical figure, almost like a messiah.”
A sympathy bounce has given Chavez a near 10-point gain to  nearly 60 percent in most polls since he had surgery in Cuba in  June to remove a malignant tumor then underwent chemotherapy.

“I think if the election was held today, he’d win,” Jones,  who works for a U.S. paper, said by telephone from New York.
Chavez, 57, has relied on heart-on-sleeve oratory, huge  slum investments and fiery rhetoric to ensure support.

“Largely wiping out illiteracy, putting Cuban doctors in  neighborhoods where most Venezuelan doctors in the past would  dare not even walk into … It’s not quite the disaster that  people internationally tend to think,” Jones said, also noting  police reforms and an “explosion” of grassroots organizations.

 “INTERNATIONAL BAD BOY”      
Rivals have struggled to match Chavez’s formula. Yet  opposition parties have achieved unprecedented unity and will  now select one candidate for the 2012 presidential poll.

“Perhaps they’re a step above what we’ve seen in the past,  but I don’t know if they’re really strong enough to break that  link Chavez still has with most Venezuelans,” said Jones.

“He’s got this uncanny ability to read the pulse of the  Venezuelan people, or at least the majority poor.”
The opposition suffered from links to a past elite  discredited in many Venezuelans’ eyes, and a lack of detailed  policies, he said. “I don’t know if they have a clear enough  message other than ‘let’s get rid of Hugo Chavez.’“

Jones’ book, subtitled “The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut  to Perpetual Revolution,” is a relatively sympathetic portrait  of a man critics decry as an old-style autocrat who has stamped  on basic freedoms and squandered the OPEC member’s oil wealth.

The author does not, though, romanticize Chavez as some  international supporters do — “I do not put him on a pedestal,  no, I just want to be fair” — and readily criticized the  government’s record on crime, graft and bureaucracy.

“He’s really seen as an international bad boy, which I  think is something of a simplification … There’s got to be a  reason people still support and vote for him after 12 years. It  can’t be that they’re all just crazy and stupid.”

Views of him in America were caricatured, he said. “When I went down to interview him, I was telling a  neighbor up here about it after I got back … and she said:  ‘Well, are you OK? Did they torture you, kidnap you?’ People  have this really distorted view of what’s going on down there. “He’s seen as a brutal, bloodthirsty dictator.”
Jones was taken aback by the impact of Chavez’s cancer.

“He was a very athletic, active guy. So to see that bloated  face and bald head is shocking.”