12-10-02 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is supposed to answer hundreds of thousands of opponents who marched through Caracas and gave him an ultimatum: Either resign, call an early referendum on your presidency, or face a massive general business and labour strike this month.
But Chavez, whose radical left-wing demagoguery has violently polarized the oil-rich nation, can probably afford to ignore the call -- and not just because most of Venezuela's poor, who make up 80 % of the population, are on his side. Chavez has another, albeit unlikely ally for the moment: George W. Bush.

Before the US began moving toward war with Iraq this past summer, Bush and Chavez were hardly amigos. In fact, Chavez lost any chance of winning a chummy nickname from Bush two years ago when, during a visit to Iraq, he called Saddam Hussein "my brother." Chavez's red beret -- the symbol of his "revolution," which he wears with the Yanqui-baiting swagger of Che Guevara -- didn't help. Nor does the way Chavez taunts his US-friendly opposition, which nearly toppled him last April in a coup, an uprising Chavez supporters accuse the Bush Administration of covertly encouraging (a charge the White House denies).

So what common ground could Chavez and Bush possibly find? Oil, of course. Chavez, 47, controls the hemisphere's largest reserves, which are often touted as America's long-term relief from Middle East oil dependence.
And with his economy staring into an Argentine-style abyss, he needs to sell more of it -- especially since the financial crisis has his military enemies itching to stage another coup. The US, meanwhile, bracing for the possibility of petro-market chaos if it invades Iraq, needs more reliable supplies.