CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is making an abrupt political shift. He’s urging his socialist movement to reach out to the middle class and small business owners.
Chavez says his party should seek middle class support as it prepares for the presidential election in late 2012. He says that he and his allies “have to reflect” and make changes in their stances.
He tells state television he has no plans to expropriate small businesses and says his government should, in his words, “open ourselves up to those sectors.”
The president is undergoing cancer treatment and is seeking to shore up support ahead of next year’s vote.
