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Chavez accuses allies of dividing coalition

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez angrily accused political allies of dividing his pro-government coalition ahead of regional elections, saying on Sunday that some dissidents are questioning his leadership.

Infighting is weakening the Patriotic Alliance — a coalition of parties that have traditionally shown near-complete allegiance to El Comandante — and threatens to split the pro-Chavez vote in November’s gubernatorial and municipal elections.

Chavez lambasted the coalition’s smaller members, including Fatherland For All and Venezuela’s Communist Party, for fielding candidates that could compete against hopefuls from his own ruling party for more than half of the 23 governorships up for grabs.

“They talk about unity, but they’re risking division,” Chavez said during his weekly broadcast program. “Some of them don’t recognize me as the leader. They won’t say it publicly, but I know that they say it in private.”

Chavez created a new ruling party — the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela — last year to consolidate the coalition as he renewed his push toward socialism.

But a number of pro-Chavez parties declined to join it, preferring to maintain their autonomy, and now they complain of being sidelined.

“They only ask us about their candidates who we are willing to support. That’s an attempt at subordination,” said Oscar Figuera, secretary general of the Communist Party.

Building consensus for a single pro-Chavez candidate in every state has been impossible despite months of negotiations with the ruling party, prompting smaller parties to fend for themselves, said Andrea Tavares of Fatherland For All.

“We don’t see an inclination toward unity within the ruling party, and we’ve said that sacrifices must be equal, that all revolutionaries must make sacrifices,” Tavares said.

Venezuela’s opposition is hoping to hand Chavez his second straight electoral defeat after voters said no last year to constitutional reforms that would have let the socialist leader run for re-election indefinitely.

Luis Vicente Leon of the Venezuelan polling firm Datanalisis said the infighting “could complicate the situation for Chavez,” but he noted that the opposition is also struggling to unite behind single candidates.
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