Mugabe victory in Zimbabwe elections a Joke

Where are the UN working against violation of the human rights? Where are the African countries, doing the right thing?. Mugabe is a cruel dictator. These elections were not fair.

vdebate reporter

Mugabe Victory in Zimbabwe Elections a 'Joke'
By LOUIS WESTON and PETA THORNYCROFT, The Daily TelegraphJune 30, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Mugabe was last night sworn in to a sixth term as president of Zimbabwe, extending his 28 years in power after officials proclaimed he had been re-elected by a landslide

CONTESTED VICTORY President Mugabe of Zimbabwe at his inauguration ceremony yesterday at State house in Harare. Mugabe was sworn in following a run-off election in which he was the sole candidate following the withdrawal of the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Maintaining the fiction that the vote was a contested poll, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said that Mr. Mugabe received 2,150,269 votes — or more than 85% — against 233,000 for Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change who won the first round in March.
Between the two polls Mr. Mugabe's Zanu-PF movement launched a campaign of violence against the opposition in which at least 86 people were killed, and Mr. Tsvangirai pulled out of the election.
"This is an unbelievable joke and act of desperation on the part of the regime," the MDC's spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, said. "It qualifies for the Guinness Book of Records as joke of the year. Mugabe will never win an election except when he's contesting against himself."
Prayers at the inauguration were led by an Anglican ally who broke away from the church, Nolbert Kunonga. "We thank you Lord for this unique and miraculous day," he said. "You have not failed our leader." Mr. Mugabe waved a Bible as he recited "so help me God," to cheers from his supporters.
Mr. Tsvangirai was invited to the event but declined. "The inauguration is meaningless," he said. "The world has said so, Zimbabwe has said so. So it's an exercise in self-delusion."
Ambassadors in Harare were conspicuous by their absence from the event.
Although Mr. Mugabe offered to hold talks with the opposition the absence of the word "negotiations" was noticeable and analysts said he intends to remain in office as long as possible.
"It is my hope that sooner rather than later, we shall as diverse political parties hold consultations towards such serious dialogue as will minimize our difference and enhance the area of unity and co-operation," Mr. Mugabe said.
Election observers from the Southern African Development Community said that the poll failed to reflect the will of the people.
Almost 400,000 Zimbabweans defied the threat of violent retribution by Mr. Mugabe's thugs to vote against him or spoil their ballot papers, official results released on yesterday show.
According to the Zimbabwe Election Commission's figures, the turnout of 42% was almost exactly the same as the first round.
But many polling stations were virtually deserted throughout election day. Papers were spoiled.
With 21,127 votes in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city and an opposition stronghold, Mr. Mugabe lost to the combined total of 13,291 votes for Mr. Tsvangirai and 9,166 spoiled papers.
Only a few independent observers were accredited for the election.
And the Zimbabwe Election Support Network — which mounted the most comprehensive monitoring exercise in the first round — pulled out in protest.
Consequently, no unbiased verification of the figures is possible and the true tallies may never be known.
For weeks, Zanu-PF militias have terrorized Zimbabweans, warning them they will launch Operation Red Finger, which will target anyone whose digit is not marked with ink to show that they cast a vote.
They will also target anyone who checks show to have backed Mr Tsvangirai.

Chavez revolution at risk

Corruption will end with "Chavez Roboilusion"

Chávez revolution at risk
By Benedict Mander in Barinas

Financial Times, 06 de junio de 2008

“There are three things you can’t hide: a cough, a pregnancy and money,” says Wilmer Azuaje, an ambitious 31-year-old politician running to be mayor of Barinas, the capital of a sprawling cattle-ranching state of the same name in Venezuela’s far west.

The issue of money in Barinas may prove crucial come November’s nationwide state and municipal elections. In running for office, Mr Azuaje is not only going against his political peers – President Hugo Chávez’s United Socialist party (PSUV), from which he was expelled last month after announcing his candidacy – but against the Chávez family, which has been the unofficial ruling clan of Barinas for a decade. The opposition has long accused the Chávez family in the state of malfeasance, and there is a current parliamentary investigation into whether members of the family used public money to accumulate a series of farms.
“Is this what they call socialism?” says Mr Azuaje. “President Chávez has to keep his family under control. They are making him look bad before the eyes of the world.”

Hugo Chávez was born in Barinas, and many of his relatives have influential positions here. His father, Hugo de Los Reyes Chávez, won the state governorship in 1998 a few months before President Chávez came to power in Caracas. Most locals believe that the president’s brother, Argenis Chávez, Barinas’s secretary of state, is also managing day-to-day affairs after the governor suffered a recent stroke. The governor’s wife, Elena, runs a state charity. Of their other sons, Aníbal Chávez is mayor of a town, Sabaneta, where the president was born; Adelis Chávez is a manager of Banco Sofitasa, which services many of the banking needs of the state government; and Narciso Chávez was once tipped to run for mayor of the state’s Bolivar municipality. The only one of the president’s brothers hitherto rarely linked to local politics is the eldest, Adán Chávez, but on Sunday he too joined the state’s political dynasty when a PSUV primary election chose him as the party’s candidate to replace his father as governor of Barinas state.
Accusations of official corruption in the state are numerous and not always directed at the Chávez family. Venezuela’s national assembly opened an investigation in March into claims that Argenis and Narciso channelled at least $3m of state funds to accumulate 17 farms through front men. The brothers have publicly denounced the accusation. Opposition parties have also launched a civil suit alleging embezzlement and kickbacks connected to a million-dollar project to build a sugar refinery in Sabaneta, although no member of the Chávez family is named in the case.

Sitting outside the radio station where he conducts a weekly programme, Argenis Chávez says the attacks against his family are politically motivated and groundless. “These accusations are doing a great deal of damage to our revolution,” he says. “They say I am the owner of shopping centres, that I have a fleet of Hummers, that I own lots of land – they want to kill me politically. But behind [Mr Azuaje’s campaign] is the opposition: it’s not my head they want but the president’s.”
There are few direct indicators of public opinion in Barinas. A recent rally against corruption and nepotism organised in Barinas city by Mr Azuaje drew about 5,000 people, although government supporters argue that many will have been drawn by the presence of famous musicians.

David Hernández, a PSUV member who is running against Aníbal Chávez to be mayor of Sabaneta, says people have lost faith with the president’s family “although we still support the president himself – for now”.

On the national level, local pollsters Datanalisis argue that corruption has become an issue of increasing concern. They suggest that in November the government could lose at least half a dozen of the 24 state and district governorships, 20 of which it currently controls. Hugo Chávez was swept to power on a wave of anti-corruption sentiment, promising to clean up the crooked practices of the past. A decade on, Mr Chávez himself admitted this year that corruption remains one of the biggest problems facing his “Bolivarian revolution”. Confronting it, however, may prove difficult. “The president says we must denounce corruption, inefficiency and bureaucracy,” says Mr Azuaje. “But if you actually go ahead and do so, they accuse you of being a traitor and a CIA agent.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/790d0664-337a-11dd-8a25-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Venezuelan President Chavez' family accused of corruption

Power+Money=Corruption=Hugo Chavez+Hugo's Family
vdebate reporter

Venezuelan President Chavez' family accused of corruption
Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2008
By TYLER BRIDGES
tbridges@MiamiHerald.com

RAUL ROMERO/FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
Hugo de los Reyes Chavez, the governor of Barinas state and father of President Hugo Chavez, at a ceremony honoring him in the city of Barinas. His wife Elena Frias de Chavez is to the left.
BARINAS, Venezuela -- Group after group -- seven in all -- climbed onto the modest stage, each one bearing a plaque honoring a man known throughout this western plains state as ``El Maestro.'' Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, father of Venezuela's president, is winding down a 10-year tenure as Barinas' governor.
But by the time the two-hour ceremony had ended in a sweaty gymnasium here, half of the party loyalists in red T-shirts had departed.
It was a symbol of the trouble the Chávez family is facing outside the gymnasium. One of President Hugo Chávez's brothers is no longer assured of winning the election in November to succeed their father, a hometurf defeat that would badly wound the president and his socialist ``revolution.''
Besides the governor, four of President Chávez's five other brothers play a key role in the state.
Argenis is secretary of state and the real power in Barinas since a stroke enfeebled El Maestro, analysts say.
Aníbal Chávez is the mayor of Sabaneta, the town where the president and his brothers were born.
Adelis Chávez works for Banco Sofitasa, which handles the banking needs of the state government, and he was responsible for building a soccer stadium.
Narciso Chávez is politically active behind the scenes in Barinas.
Adán is the one brother who doesn't live in Barinas, but he is the president's minister of education and is seen as the one most likely to run for governor, given the corruption accusations tainting the other brothers.
Barinas residents have become fed up with what they see as the heavy-handed and arrogant ways of the Chávez family, analysts and average citizens alike say. One example that rankles widely: The governor and his wife travel in a caravan of SUVs with a police escort that halts all traffic to let them pass.
Governor Chávez spent millions of dollars to build a sugar refinery that has yet to open, and millions more for a new soccer stadium that remains unfinished, a year after it was inaugurated for the America's Cup tournament, analysts said.
Gehard Cartay, who was Barinas' governor 1993-96, said the state government spends its money in secret and no longer seeks public bids for big infrastructure projects. Even Governor Chávez's salary is hidden, he added.
''They are not the same poor family as before,'' Cartay said. ``It's hard to hide wealth in a small state like Barinas.''
An ambitious congressman from Barinas has broken with President Chávez's political party by trying to capitalize on the disenchantment, at a time when the president has lost public support nationally as well as his aura of invincibility after suffering his first electoral defeat when voters in December rejected expanding his power.
The congressman, Wilmer Azuaje, has launched his campaign for governor by accusing the elder Chávez and two of the president's brothers of using public funds to buy ranches in Barinas and using straw men to hide the purchases.
''Everybody knows this has been going on,'' said Angel Díaz, whose brother Frenchy, a local mayor, is also a candidate for governor. ``That the accusations came from someone within the Chávez camp has been a bombshell.''
Elena Frías de Chávez, wife of the governor and mother of the president, is known for her flashy jewelry and for reputed visits to a plastic surgeon. She had a quick response when asked about the accusations.
''It's all about envy,'' she said on her way into the gymnasium ceremony. ``These people are uneducated. They want to pull us down to their level. They are pitiful lowlifes. They're not used to a single family holding such power.''
No one disputes that El Maestro -- a nickname dating to his days as a schoolteacher -- and his children wield enormous power in Barinas, which is both a state and a city.
Barinas could be an underdeveloped version of West Texas, with its cattle ranches, country music and stifling heat. Open-air thatched roof restaurants serve meat carved from flanks of beef cooked slowly on poles around a campfire.
Barinas is one of Venezuela's poorest states.
Hugo was born in a shack with a dirt floor in Sabaneta. The family's home in the city of Barinas, where they moved when Hugo was a teenager, was a modest upgrade.
Older residents remember him dreaming far more about pitching for the San Francisco Giants than trying to turn his country into a Socialist paradise.
Hugo de los Reyes Chávez was a state leader with Copei, Venezuela's center-right political party.
About 30 years ago, he bought a ranch called La Chavera and raised pigs and chickens.
''It was a very simple place,'' recalled Antonio Bastidas, a neighbor of the Chávez clan and now a political foe. ``I helped them slaughter the pigs and chickens. They earned just enough to keep it going.''
La Chavera has doubled in size to 150 acres, now has milk cows and is a state-of-the-art ranch, said Bastidas. Asked how the elder Chávez paid for this, Bastidas replied, ``Well, he didn't win the lottery.''
Congressman Azuaje has been more direct in his comments. He has accused the governor and Argenis and Narciso Chávez of secretly buying up to 17 ranches in Barinas. He notes that records on one of the ranches, La Malagueña, list the longtime watchman at La Chavera as having paid $400,000 to buy it.
Locals seem to believe that the ranch belongs to the Chávez family. On the way to La Malagueña, Azuaje repeatedly pulled over on the two-lane country road to ask small-time farmers if they knew how to get to the ''Chávez ranch.'' Seven of eight people told him it was just a little farther down the road.
The governor and his sons ''see Barinas as their own personal hacienda,'' Azuaje said. ``They're exploiting their last name. But Barinas doesn't belong to them.''
Azuaje has presented ownership documents on five of the ranches to the national prosecutor and a congressional committee.
He would not have been welcome at the gymnasium, where 2,000 of the Chávez faithful gathered for El Maestro's annual state of the state speech.
''He's a good person,'' said William Herrera, who, like several others interviewed, said he worked for state government. ``He listens to the people and is accessible.''
But the good will seemed to seep out of the gymnasium while the elder Chávez read his speech in a monotone so uncaptivating that even his sons soon ignored it to talk with seatmates.
''I haven't lied,'' Hugo de los Reyes Chávez said at one point. ``I haven't violated any ethical principles.''
In Caracas, party leaders have called for an investigation of Azuaje and for his expulsion from the party.
One party stalwart said on a television show that Azuaje frequented prostitutes and abused drugs. Azuaje promptly tested negative for cocaine and marijuana and displayed the results on his own show.
The congressman has been careful not to implicate President Chávez.
The president has refrained from attacking Azuaje, instead saying that his brothers deserve the right to defend themselves.
Azuaje, 31, has been a political leader in Barinas since 2000 and was elected to Congress in 2005.
He likes to drive fast, with one hand on the wheel of his SUV and the other dialing his cell phone or changing the channels on the small dashboard TV. His 20-year-old girlfriend was a candidate for Miss Venezuela last year.
Azuaje said he had no choice but to go public after receiving information about the ranches.
''The president says that revolutionaries have to tell the truth,'' Azuaje said. ``If you don't denounce corruption, you are an accomplice.''
Others ascribe less pure motives.
''It's like pirates fighting over the booty,'' said Jesús Alfonso Sánchez, a law professor and former congressman. ``They are turning on themselves. Everybody's talking about it.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/513132.html

The corruption of democracy in Venezuela‏

Great article wriiten by Gustavo Coronel!

/CORONEL_CORRUPT%5B1%5D.pdf

Even poor are losing in Venezuela

Venezuela’s Marxist dictatorship is destroying property rights across the country. We’ve noted in the past how it’s happened in the countryside, at sugar farms, on nature reserves, among the large and small corporations, and in apartment and office buildings. But these aren’t the only places – the destruction of property rights also is happening in the poorest neighborhoods.

vdebate
In an unexpectedly good article (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1668) Alex Holland, a writer at Venezuelanalysis, a Chavista propaganda organ, unwittingly describes how even poor shantytown dwellerss with desperate need for title-deed ownership are being badly affected by collectivization, which is destroying the weak property rights these urban poor once had. The writer explains the horrible dynamic with perfect clarity and honesty and then ineptly defends it, making the Marxist propaganda easy for us to gloss over. Evidently, the facts on the ground were just too big for this writer.
Here is how it happens:
People who live in the urban barrios, those ramshackle red brick houses that starkly encircle Caracas on mountain after mountain cannot just get title deed but must join a 100-200-strong collective called an “Urban Land Committee” or, CTU, first. If they don’t join one of these, they get no title deed and are shut out of the system. The system came into being based on a 2002 decree by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.
There are over 5,200 of these collectives, averaging 147 houses in each, representing more than a fifth of Venezuelans, or 5.7 million of Venezuela’s 25-million strong population. The author notes that the explicit aim of them is social “change.”
Then the issue of who the land really belongs to is brought up.
In a loaded passage, the article says many of the slum houses are on land that is vaguely described as belonging to other people. Some houses are said to be longstanding squats that no one did anything about. That’s one justification for ascertaining who has a right to property. The other is of numbers. Large numbers, as in collectives, not length of stay, or effort to get title deed, or tax payments, or investments, just numbers, are the other criteria for determining who has a right to occupy a property.
The article describes a planned takeover of a “mansion” by a group of 23 homeless families, due to the mansion being occupied by a lone woman who apparently got it somehow from the army. This woman is said to not have title deed (any more than squatters do) but since there are more of them (at five per family, that should be about 120 people, quite a number even for a“mansion”) they are getting ready to take it over. No word on how the woman feels about it.
The author then speaks of the fears the so-called rich have for such occupations of private property moving from the poor areas to inside the better parts of the city. Based on the news, the actions in the barrios encourage takeovers in other parts of the city. The question of who decides who gets taken over and who gets left alone is left up in the air.
Somehow the title-deed system is flawed all over Venezuela but only the poor, and only in collectives, have any right to declare title deed. A shantytown dweller without title deed is a good guy deserving of title deed or whatever Chavismo understands as such, but a rich guy in the city without title deed is a thief whose property needs to be confiscated accordingly. There is literally no recognition of rule of law grounded in inviolable property rights.
Venezuelanalysis writes:
This was about “democratizing ownership,” Martinez argued. As part of this “democratizing” process, (chief collectivization chief Ivan) Martinez did admit that the government does not consider all property rights to be as sacred as others.
No kidding!
According to Hernando de Soto, (who’s cited disdainfully in this article), the only purpose of property rights is their inviolability. That’s what makes them a basis for rule of law. Without inviolable property rights, there will never be rule of law, but only arbitrary rules and confiscations, all of which create uncertainty and a disincentive to invest.
Meanwhile, what goes on in the CTU collectives is scrutinized as well. Venezuelananalysis gushingly writes:The CTUs are about people debating, agreeing, and taking action collectively about things that directly affect every aspect of their daily lives.
The writer didn’t ask what happens when someone disagrees. What happens to someone who doesn’t want to go along with something? Can they count on giving up title deed because they’ll be out of the collective? The right to dissent is highly suspect in such a setup given that it’s tied to one’s title deed. How freely can anyone speak in such circumstances?
Discussions about water and electricity are mentioned as one thing – and I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s against water and electricity so it’s hard to see what’s to discuss or why a meeting is necessary. But the author gives away the game by explaining that the discussions are more likely to be Marxist indoctrination, as in “social charters.” It doesn’t say what happens to people who don’t agree with the indoctrination.
What’s more, maps are made of the barrios, which is ok in itself, but obviously, given the collectives running these things, are more likely for coercive security purposes from the state which has its hands on everything.
Meanwhile, these CTU collectives are cursed with the usual curse of Marxism- meetings upon meetings, ten-hour-long indoctrinations each week, plus higher level meetings up at least two levels after that. With a setup like that, it’s clear that most slum dwellers are trapped in a forced meeting for indoctrination, something that prevents them from doing more productive things if they can. The author claims that party politics is not discussed but what’s more likely is that the topic is off limits, and what goes on in Chavez’s MVR party is concealed. Instead, they get indoctrination like this:Topics discussed beyond the need to physically improve the barrio range from a desire to encourage social production to transcending the capitalist system entirely.
But the CTUs are sources of handouts, the only handouts accessible to these urban poor. Naturally, they are for collective projects, as decided by the collective nomenklatura, ever mind the dissenters. Some of the funds are also for individual houses, such as “repairing an old lady’s house” the author says, though in reality, they are just as likely to go for that extra fourth floor on the house of the collective chief. The point is, it’s discretionary, inherently disadvantageous to the dissenters and inherently advantageous to the barrio leader and his select cronies.
Of course it’s a money-pit. The state financer, called Banfonades, is reported even in the Chavista media as being bankrupt and mismanaged, with vast funds disappearing. Its funds may well have gone to support “housing” for Chavista elite in places like Miami.
What’s more, the government administration of the funds has resulted in long delays and inefficiencies. Barrio dwellers tell the writer that life is exactly the same as before, dismissing the claim that the people have become beggars of the state. That doesn’t sound like improvement – it sounds more like housing money in Miami. The writer describes housing protests to the government for its inefficiency. Obviously, it’s another hallmark of a Marxist regime right there. The writer didn’t say if the barrio dwellers ever got any relief for their protest.
There is a single good point the Chavistas make, which is that the slum collectives should not be cleared for big Stalinist housing projects that were so characteristic of blighted Paris during its 2005 riots.
But that doesn’t help the existing slums if people cannot own their own houses no matter what their political views, cannot buy them or sell them as they please, cannot make improvements without dependence on government financing and are forced into collectivist indoctrination sessions to partake of any benefits, the most basic of which is title deed. Private property under these conditions is nothing more than slum housing and given the fact that these slums are on hillsides instead of high-rises, amounts only to a more organic way to get a view.
A.M. Mora y Leon 02 13 05

Antonini isn't the only "testaferro" from Venezuela

Antonini isn't the only "testaferro" from Venezuela.

Financial Crime Consultant, for World-Check
17 August 2007
The $800,000 detected and seized by Argentinean customs authorities from Venezuelan Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson has generated a firestorm of public disgust, both in Argentina as well as in Venezuela. It has provided a rare public look at the darkest side of Latin American election politics, illegal cash payments designed to influence the outcome of presidential elections, made by the leaders of another nation, in this case, Venezuela. As this article is about trade-craft, the actual money laundering tactics seldom seen, but effectively employed, today we open a door to the truth, and detail the story of another Venezuelan "Testaferro" (bagman), and how he engineered "regime change" in another South American country. Antonini is, unfortunately, but one of many who move illegal cash to corrupt fair and free elections and topple elected governments.
Let's turn back the clock a couple of years. Ecuador was in turmoil; the legitimate government there under extreme pressure from several quarters. A renegade Ecuadorian colonel, interested in the installation of a radical leftist government, makes a plea to the Venezuelan leadership, the " Bolivarian Elite.": assist me in putting a government similar to that which you have into power. His wish was granted, and the dirty little game commences.The testaferro de jour, selected for the job, was a Venezuelan insider: Pastor Bismarck Arraez. According to witnesses, he immediately obtained $2m in government funds, and traveled to Ecuador via commercial aviation. Meanwhile, the colonel traveled to the same destination via another flight, and ensured that the money Bismarck was carrying was passed through customs without incident. Perhaps Ecuadorian customs officials can explain how this happened.The $2m was turned over to the colonel by Bismarck, and went to the financial support the of radical candidate, and to the leftist trade unions, whose members were soon out in the street, en masse, creating chaos and calling for the resignation of the government. The rest, as you know, is history. A radical leftist government, instantly allied with the foreign government that financed its ascension, came into power. Bismarck is known to have also traveled to Peru and to Mexico. What exactly was he doing in those countries? We cannot say, but perhaps the customs and immigration services of those nations might want to see how frequently he was a visitor, and the purpose of his trips. Who did he see whilst there? We do not yet know the identity of the individual who performed those services in Nicaragua, but our investigation is continuing.These illicit payments can serve many functions:

• Fix elections, fund extensive bribery of public officials and bureaucrats.
• Allow favoured candidates to purchase votes.
• Pay for high-profile television and media advertising.
• Fund expensive dinners and public functions of the candidate.
• Bribe military officers who can order troops or police to interfere with the exercise of voters' rights.

The number of testaferros operating in Latin America today, plying their dirty trade, is unknown. The only way to shut them down is to arrest and convict them for money laundering. Will this happen to Antonini?

Political Clashes Shake Venezuela’s Strained Oil Industry

Interesting comment in this article"
“The longer Venezuela’s new partners wait to negotiate with seriousness, the more vulnerable Chávez becomes,” said Roger Tissot, director for Latin America at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington.
Political Clashes Shake Venezuela’s Strained Oil Industry
The New York Times

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela, July 22

Venezuela’s national oil company is being shaken by claims of corruption and by internal dissent, indicating fissures within the institution largely responsible for financing President Hugo Chávez’s widening array of social welfare programs and foreign aid projects.The problems at the company, Petróleos de Venezuela, have been compounded by a rare acknowledgment by Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister and president of the company, that it cannot hire enough drilling rigs, raising concern over its ability to halt declines in oil production.

“Our sovereignty is at risk if we allow Petróleos de Venezuela to remain in this situation,” Luís Tascón, a pro-Chávez lawmaker, said in a telephone interview. “We cannot allow this company to remain an indecipherable black box.” Mr. Tascón has summoned Mr. Ramírez to the National Assembly to respond to accusations of corruption against senior executives.

Mr. Ramírez has emerged as a focus of criticism amid claims of illegal deals with oil-services companies on his watch. The attacks on him are viewed as part of a power struggle among Mr. Chávez’s supporters, with ideological loyalists clashing with the relatively less radical technocrats in charge of the strained oil industry.

The tension within Petróleos de Venezuela follows other feuds within political institutions under Mr. Chávez’s control that began earlier this year when several political parties in his coalition resisted his move to gather supporters into a single Socialist party.The armed forces also experienced an internal uproar after Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel delivered a speech as he prepared to step down as defense minister this month saying that Mr. Chávez’s Socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society should not be contaminated by Marxist orthodoxy.

But the depth of problems within Petróleos de Venezuela, which is responsible for about half of total government revenues and three-quarters of Venezuelan export revenues, illustrates how the feuds within Mr. Chávez’s coalition may weaken his ability to carry out his plans.

In comments that jolted global energy markets last week, Mr. Ramírez, the energy minister, acknowledged that Petróleos de Venezuela had hired 40 percent fewer drilling rigs than its target for this year, in part because of new rules requiring contractors to donate 10 percent of the value of their contracts to social welfare projects. While difficulty finding drilling rigs is not limited to Venezuela at a time of growing exploration internationally, Petróleos de Venezuela is also grappling with internal labor disputes as the company is strained by plans to create an assemblage of new subsidiaries charged with activities like farming, shipbuilding and manufacturing.

Union leaders, sensing vulnerability among senior executives and complaining that management had reneged on various employment benefits, said they were planning protests at production facilities across Venezuela this week. Work stoppages could make the company’s production difficulties more acute.

Speaking before the National Assembly last week, Luis Vierma, vice president of exploration and production at Petróleos de Venezuela, described the company as being in an “operational emergency.” A company spokesman did not respond to requests for interviews with Mr. Ramírez and Mr. Vierma.Venezuela, with some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, officially claims to produce almost 3.1 million barrels of oil a day, but institutions like the International Energy Agency in Paris put output at 2.37 million barrels a day, down about 230,000 from a year ago.

Other energy analysts say output problems are potentially even more broadly troubling. The country’s oil exports fell 15 percent while overall production dropped 7 percent in the first quarter of this year, said Ramón Espinasa, a chief economist at Petróleos de Venezuela in the pre-Chávez era and now a respected consultant, citing both the difficulties with hiring rigs and a surge in domestic fuel consumption driven by subsidized prices.

Combined with lower global oil prices during part of this year, Venezuela’s income from oil exports may decline by about 24 percent in 2007, to $45.6 billion compared with $60.4 billion last year, by Mr. Espinasa’s estimate.

Part of the strain on Petróleos de Venezuela relates to Mr. Chávez’s efforts to assert greater control over the oil industry this year, following decrees by the president enabling the takeover of oil projects from companies including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.That has raised fears that employees of those companies who have been critical of Mr. Chávez’s actions could be fired. A report last week in Tal Cual, an opposition daily newspaper, cited documents showing how Petróleos de Venezuela had evaluated the political sympathies of engineers at Sincor, a venture whose control was recently ceded to the government from Total of France and Statoil of Norway.

Several engineers deemed disloyal to Mr. Chávez were fired, according to the report.With newer oil fields in the Orinoco Belt facing high production costs and technical challenges because the oil there is high in impurities, a smooth transition to government control is needed to keep production levels from falling.“We’re finishing a complex process,” Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview, referring to the nationalizations.“We remain committed to supplying oil to the United States,” he added.

Venezuela remains one of the leading suppliers of oil to the United States, and the volume of oil bound for the United States has remained steady. Petroleum exports to the United States in April were 1.4 million barrels a day, the most recent figures available from the Department of Energy. Mr. Chávez is betting that new ventures with national oil companies from China, Iran, Vietnam and Belarus will allow Venezuela to lift production. Yet while production costs soar and uncertainty persists as to treatment of foreign investors, companies in most other countries have been hesitant to invest heavily in Venezuela.

“The longer Venezuela’s new partners wait to negotiate with seriousness, the more vulnerable Chávez becomes,” said Roger Tissot, director for Latin America at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington.

So far, Mr. Chávez has not publicly intervened in Petróleos de Venezuela. Instead, he seems to be placing his faith in a recent increase in oil prices, which hit an 11-month high of $78.40 a barrel in London trading last week.

“Oil is going straight to $100; no one can stop it,” Mr. Chávez said last week during a visit to Nicaragua.