http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/10/international/americas/10CARA.html?pag ewanted=print
December 10, 2001
A Brash Rival for Venezuela's President
By JUAN FORERO
CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 9 — Alfredo Peña may be just the mayor of Caracas, but that did not stop him from visiting the State Department and the World Bank in Washington in October, antagonizing his rival, President Hugo Chávez.
The mayor has called the president's friendship with Fidel Castro of Cuba "a barbarity" and his policies "absurd." He held a news conference to throw his support behind a nationwide work stoppage planned for Monday by businessmen protesting Mr. Chávez's new program for economic reform.
It is titillating political theater, but Mr. Peña seems to get immense pleasure from provoking Mr. Chávez, Venezuela's volatile leader, whom the mayor once supported. The message from the whitewashed colonial-style building on Plaza Bolívar that houses city hall seems clear: the pugnacious Mr. Peña is poised to take on Mr. Chávez.
Mr. Peña, 57, a former television talk show host whose booming, raspy voice belies his slight build, has emerged as the leading challenger to a president who has rolled over political opponents in his three-year remaking of Venezuela.
"The man of the day, the great opposition, is Peña," said Luis Vicente León, co-director of the Caracas polling firm Datanalisis. "There is no one else. He's way ahead."
Polls still indicate that Mr. Chávez, who won the presidency by promising to root out corruption and improve the lives of Venezuela's poor, would win an election if it were held now. But pollsters said his popularity had fallen recently, with his combative style alienating former allies and creating new enemies.
Mr. Peña, meanwhile, has risen. Consultores 21, another Caracas polling firm, found last month that 45 percent of respondents felt "closer" to Mr. Peña, compared with 35 percent for Mr. Chávez. Meanwhile, a Datanalisis poll released last week, with more general questions about popularity, indicated that most Venezuelans believe that Mr. Peña is the country's most important leader.
Mr. Peña, speaking in his ornate office, noted that the next election is not until 2006, and he would not say that he was out to topple Mr. Chávez.
But his high-octane language — filled with belittling comments not unlike the discourse that Mr. Chávez's supporters love — tells another story. To the delight of the president's critics, the mayor told Mr. Chávez to "wash your mouth out with soap." Wagging his finger, he has accused the president of backing policies that foment hunger and of backing guerrillas in Colombia.
"I am very critical of the international policies of this government," Mr. Peña said in an unusually understated moment.
Responding to being called Little Bean III by Mr. Chávez (the two other beans were other opponents), Mr. Peña shot back, "The beans went to Chavez's head, but every crazy man has his day."
Anibal Romero, a political analyst, said that kind of discourse is an important tool in Mr. Peña's arsenal. "He is like Chávez in that way," Mr. Romero said. "He is not a politician for the middle and upper classes. He's a politician for the masses."
Mr. Peña acknowledged that he was acutely aware that his performance as mayor would open or close the door to his political aspirations.
He is also aware of the significance of the Chávez government's accusations of mismanagement against him, while, the mayor contends, withholding money the city needs. "Maybe that is why they are boycotting and sabotaging my administration, so I fail," Mr. Peña said. "Then they eliminate me politically."
Mr. Peña is fighting back by taking on one of Caracas's most intractable problems, crime, and highlighting every small victory.
Earlier this year, the mayor brought in William J. Bratton, who helped oversee New York's crime drop as police commissioner in the mid-1990's. With some of New York's tactics in place in the crime-plagued Catia district, killings fell to 276 in the first nine months of this year from 393 in the same period of 2000.
The federal government has responded by saying its use of National Guard troops on the streets is the real reason for the crime drop.
Mr. Chávez's allies accuse the mayor of being the most clever of opportunists, noting that Mr. Peña played an important role in Mr. Chavez's run for the presidency, later undertaking the important job of helping rewrite the Constitution.
Then Mr. Peña used Mr. Chávez as a steppingstone to become mayor, said Luis Miquilena, the interior and justice minister.
"But his ego is of such magnitude, his modesty is so big, that he says he got there through his own merits," said Mr. Miquilena.
The relationship between the mayor's office and the Chávez administration soured even further after Mr. Peña visited Washington, where he stopped by the State Department and also sought aid for his anticrime programs from the World Bank. The National Assembly in Caracas responded by opening an investigation, charging that Mr. Peña might qualify as a "traitor to the country" for criticizing Venezuela abroad.
Mr. Peña has not backed down. He sealed a deal with the Hialeah Police Department in Florida to train 50 Caracas police officers and secured $8 million in technical assistance from the Japanese government to help prevent floods and landslides in poor neighborhoods.
"We're looking for help, we're looking for cooperation," he said. "Because we do not have much help here."
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