Economy challenges Venezuelan ruling party in elections: observer

Economy, instead of the opposition, would form the biggest challenge to Venezuela's ruling socialist party in December's legislative elections, a political observer said here on Sunday.

The people's dissatisfaction with high prices and shortages of basic goods is the government's biggest enemy, said Oscar Schemel, head of polling firm Hinterlaces, during an interview on a talk show broadcasted over the Televen channe lon Sunday.

Despite the widespread discontent, said Schemel, some 60 percent of Venezuelans want to see the ruling socialist party and the incumbent president Nicolas Maduro stay in power, while making the necessary changes to get the economy back on track.

"People are thinking about a correction and relaunch (of the economy), not a change in government. The people want a model that works," he said.

A majority of Venezuelans, who have seen their standard of living improve in the past 15 years when the socialists were in power, support the government's policies of inclusion and equality, yet they are also demanding a more efficient public sector, according to Schemel.

The main "driver" of discontent is the sense of "uncertainty" that prevails over the country's economic and social future, said the expert.

Venezuela's government, he said, needs to modify its socialist model and boost the productive sector, where state, private and communal enterprises, and international and transnational investment all converge.

Such a scheme, he added, should be accompanied by a campaign that promotes a greater work ethic, with the prevalent belief that the oil-rich South American nation, and its residents, can live off its oil revenues.

After the socialists came to power in 1999, the global price of crude oil steadily rose until it reached a historic high of just under 145 U.S. dollars per barrel in July 2008, after which it took a sharp dive.

"Changing the productive bases, renovating the social welfare model, renewing the discourse and above all creating confidence in a better future" are among the tasks the government must tackle in the lead up to the elections, he said.

Maduro's government, he noted, has already taken steps to combat the problems of most concern to the public: crime and shortages, by targeting the criminal gangs dealing in contraband at the country's borders, where smugglers hoard basic goods at low government-subsidized prices and sell them for much higher prices in neighboring Colombia, creating artificial scarcity. Endi