Venezuela's "Maximum Leader" President Hugo Chavez is acting as if he were fighting for his political life.In the run-up to Sunday's regional and municipal elections, the 54-year-old former paratrooper is waging a massive political blitz replete with promises, pronouncements and threats. He has banned some 300 opposition politicians from running, released secretly recorded wiretapped conversations of others and resorted to outright intimidation calling dissidents in his own party "filthy traitors," "sell-outs" and "counter-revolutionaries," while branding opposition politicians "conspirators," and " vile imbeciles."
He has threatened to put anyone who questions the victory of his own candidates into jail and vowed to put tanks into the streets of states that end up in the hands of opponents.