IT MAY be only a legislative election, in a country where all power lies with Hugo Chávez, the president. But both Mr Chávez and his opponents see the vote for the 165-seat National Assembly on September 26th as crucial to their future. Mr Chávez, though not a candidate, has turned it into a plebiscite on himself. Most government campaign posters feature his image. He is criss-crossing the country. “The revolution has just one voice,” declared Marcos Díaz, the governor of Mérida state, during a televised campaign stop. Redshirted state employees chanted “with Chávez everything, without Chávez nothing”.
Having ill-advisedly chosen to boycott the parliamentary election in 2005 on the ground that it feared it would not be free or fair, the opposition has had to watch as a rubber-stamp assembly passed laws restricting private business and concentrating ever more power in the executive. If the opposition’s Venezuela Unity alliance fails to win enough seats to provide a counterweight, it fears that Venezuela will slide ever-faster towards dictatorship.