Whether he can win back those leaders will be a key test of his new term. 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.