Most wealthy Venezuelans supported his main challenger, Arias, calling Chavez a dictator who was driving the country to ruin. Since Chavez took office in February 1999, living standards for the country's poor majority have fallen and the economy has gone into a tailspin. The gross domestic product shrank by 7 percent last year despite a quadrupling in the price of oil, Venezuela's main export. And Chavez's rhetoric of class struggle and talk of following Cuba's path terrified the business class. Nobody opens a business.
Nobody wants to invest anything.
Nobody buys anything. Arias refused to concede defeat in a speech early Monday. It wants and seeks democracy. No results were available on the congressional races, but the president's movement was expected to win at least a simple majority in the legislature. Those results will be crucial for the opposition's ability to maintain a voice in Venezuelan politics as Chavez tries to parlay his overwhelming support into even deeper reform.