WHEN a group of Venezuelan women staged an impromtu protest recently by dropping their trousers in front of armed national guards, President Hugo Chavez cheekily observed that the women were obviously in need of more attention than they received from their opposition husbands.

It was a characteristically inflammatory insult from the self-styled revolutionary who once called the former president George W Bush “the devil” and has already labelled President Barack Obama “el negro”.

Next Sunday Chavez’s bombastic wit and autocratic presidential style will once again be put to the test in a second referendum on his attempts to remove constitutional limits that prevent him from becoming president for life.

After narrowly losing a similar vote in 2007, Chavez has returned with a ferocious crackdown on opposition supporters and dire warnings of plots to overthrow him and hints that evil imperialists want to take over the oil industry, which supplies 93% of the country’s export revenues.

Last week he announced that two national guard officers had been arrested after “making contacts with the United States via e-mail [and] preparing destabilising plans against the president”.

The most recent opinion polls indicate that Chavez’s “yes” campaign is ahead by 51.5% to 48%. Victory would allow him to stand for president as often as he likes, instead of being obliged to step down when his current term ends in 2013.

Yet opposition leaders claim that, whether he wins or loses, Venezuela faces a disastrous future after a decade of Chavez misrule based on soaring oil revenues. These have now plunged precipitously, threatening the country with spiralling food prices and disintegrating public services.

Reports last week that Venezuela’s state oil company had fallen behind on billions of dollars worth of payments to private oil contractors underlined the financial pressure on welfare programmes that form the core of Chavez’s appeal.

The former army officer, who claims to be the first Venezuelan president to pay attention to the plight of the poor, remains hugely popular with millions of slum residents whose government hand-outs were easily funded when the country’s oil was fetching a record $147 a barrel.

But prices have slipped to below $40 a barrel, and the government recently transferred $12 billion from the central bank’s $42 billion reserves to bolster its current accounts.

Analysts are warning that Venezuela may be in for a dangerous bout of stagflation – with prices soaring as the economy shrinks.

Chavez has dealt with increasing complaints about his chaotic policies by diverting attention to manifold plots supposedly hatched by opposition “traitors”. “The ‘yes’ campaign consists of the criminalisation of students, rhetoric of hate and stigmatising the opposition,” said Ricardo Sucre, an opposition consultant.

Chavez has responded by arguing that only he can guarantee the survival of the social “missions” installed in the slums to help the poor.

“Losing Chavez would create fear and uncertainty,” noted Maryclen Stelling, a Caracas sociology professor. “In recent elections, Chavez’s supporters have been ready to chastise him by giving him a little scare. But now they are frightened themselves that the revolution will be lost.”

Many are far from sure that Chavez will go, even if he loses next Sunday. “The government doesn’t respect results,” warned Sucre. “This has the characteristics of a dictatorship.”

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