Venezuela leader's foe also ex-coup plotter, but more moderate

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Like the president he's trying to unseat in next Sunday's election, Francisco Arias Cardenas took up arms against a previous government and paid for it with a jail term. And like the president, he says he wants to govern for the poor.

But unlike populist President Hugo Chavez, Arias talks more about good management than revolution, courts private investors and gets along with the Catholic Church. He speaks fondly of the United States and criticizes Chavez's alliance with Fidel Castro.

Arias's moderation has earned him the support of the middle and upper classes. But polls say it isn't getting him far with the poor majority in this South American nation of 23 million people, so a victory is unlikely.

Even though Chavez took office only 17 months ago, new elections have been called for president, congressmen, governors, mayors and local councilmen as part of a new constitution pushed through by Chavez last year.

The vote was originally set for May, but was postponed because of technical glitches in the computer system used to tally votes. Arias' supporters had hoped he would use the extra time to close the gap in the polls, but recent surveys have Chavez still leading by 15 percentage points or more.

When Arias launched his candidacy in March, many Venezuelans thought he might win because of his shared history as a former coup plotter who rose up against a government widely considered corrupt -- and because of his perceived independence from political elites most Venezuelans blame for squandering the country's oil reserves.

But Arias, depicted by Chavez as a "traitor" bought by a "rancid oligarchy," has been unable to shed an image as the candidate of the rich -- a perception the candidate says is mistaken.

"The truth is Arias Cardenas is not from the elite," he told The Associated Press. "He is from a slum, from a humble provincial town, the son of a taxi driver."

In a bitter campaign that has pitted rich against poor and divided Venezuela like seldom before, Arias' sobriety seems no match for Chavez's folksy charisma. At one campaign swing in a Caracas slum, Chavez's supporters pelted Arias with bricks, vegetables and trash. At another, they displayed a life-size effigy of Arias with a sign on its chest reading: "traitor."

Arias and the other three former military officers who helped Chavez lead his failed 1992 coup attempt have all broken with the president, saying he has betrayed the original goals of their rebellion and grabbed too much power.

According to Arias's friends, the differences between him and Chavez began to surface shortly after the two were jailed following their coup. Arias, who spent his teen years studying to become a priest, was never comfortable with Chavez's leftist agenda, they said.

As a two-time governor of the oil-rich state of Zulia, Arias welcomed private capital in state enterprises like the sea port, airport and a bridge spanning Lake Maracaibo. He says Chavez's revolutionary discourse is scaring off investors and increasing unemployment.

"This class confrontation, this friction between poor and rich, is only going to bring more hunger and more misery," he said in the interview.

He says he's running for president to rescue Venezuela from what he calls Chavez's catastrophic rule that saw Venezuela's economy shrink by 7 percent last year despite a boom in world oil prices.

His wife, Gladys, offered another explanation. She told the AP her husband was angered by Chavez's attacks on another coup leader, former secret police chief Jesus Urdaneta. She said he was also upset that members of the president's Fifth Republic Movement began accusing Arias of corruption when he was governor of Zulia.

Regardless of why he's running, wealthier Venezuelans see Arias as their best chance of stopping what they consider Chavez's assault on democracy. Most of his support appears to be based on an intense dislike of Chavez rather than any great fondness for Arias.

At one Arias campaign rally, biochemist Carmen Hernandez said she was voting for Arias in hopes of booting Chavez out.

"If we do not get rid of this man, we are going to have a second Cuba here," she said.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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