While Mr. Chávez’s allies preserved a majority in the National Assembly, gerrymandering approved earlier this year that gave disproportionate power to rural districts where the opposition remains weak helped them achieve that goal.
Despite obtaining that majority, Aristóbulo Istúriz, a senior official in Mr. Chávez’s political movement, acknowledged that the results fell short of expectations since the opposition would now have the ability to block significant legislation. For instance, the president needs a two-thirds majority to obtain temporary decree powers and to get appointees like Supreme Court justices or the attorney general easily approved.
“We put forth two-thirds as a goal and it was not possible to achieve it,” Mr. Istúriz told reporters early Monday. “But we are the majority.”Still, senior opposition leaders contested that assertion as well, claiming their coalition won 52 percent of votes nationwide, according to their own unofficial count. In a proxy for the popular vote, an official count of votes for candidates to represent Venezuela in the Latin American Parliament showed Mr. Chávez’s candidates with 46.6 percent against 45.1 percent for the opposition.
Sunday’s elections offered voters a crucial plebiscite on Mr. Chávez’s government, which has been trying to promote its array of oil-financed social welfare projects to an electorate struggling with problems like a soaring homicide rate and a recession that officials here argue is finally subsiding after dragging on for more than a year.
Now the hard work of reigning him in.
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