Marking 11 years in power this week and with a decisive Parliamentary election scheduled for late September, President Hugo Chávez faces his greatest crisis since the brief coup against him in 2002.

``This year will be a very difficult one and an uphill [battle] for Chávez, and he has little maneuvering room, because he is coming up against a huge crisis,'' said political analyst Manuel Felipe Sierra in Caracas.

Student protests continued for a second week in Caracas and other cities, confronting a harsh response from police, amid new signs that Chávez plans to strengthen his position while facing serious economic problems, an alarming political polarization and growing popular discontent.

In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, Chávez said Ramiro Valdes, vice president of the Council of State of Cuba and its Minister of Technology and Information, will chair a committee to address the electricity crisis in Venezuela.

The news raised suspicions. Valdes, who served as interior minister several times over nearly 50 years, is the creator of Cuba's security apparatus and has always been considered one of the most hard-line officials in Castro's government.

``The Cuban minister, whose primary specialty is repression, will be unable to avoid blackouts if he could not prevent them in his own country,'' wrote Rafael Poleo, a Venezuelan political analyst and editor living in exile in Miami.

So far, protests have left two dead and hundreds injured, arrested or both. The economic situation is compounded by rampant crime, the closure of media outlets, administrative corruption and the collapse of public services.

Protests have revived the student leadership, with new leaders like Roderick Navarro, a student at Venezuela's Central University.

NO SURRENDER

``We will not stop protesting, we will stay out on the streets, no matter what the government does,'' he said last week during a surprise demonstration condemning the closure of the private television network RCTV.

Last week, two former commanders who had joined Chávez in his failed coup attempt of Feb. 4, 1992 against President Carlos Andrés Pérez publicly called for his resignation.

Retired commanders Joel Acosta Chirinos and Jesus Urdaneta, both members of the brotherhood of Bolivarian inspiration that has since 1982 worked with Chávez to change the democratic system in Venezuela, stated that he no longer has ``moral authority'' to govern.

Chirinos emphasized the deterioration of public services and an economic crisis during a period of oil wealth.

It is difficult for Venezuelans to understand the crisis, which comes despite more than $1 trillion in income over 11 years, according to figures from the annual budget and additional resources approved by the National Assembly from 1999 to 2009.

``All that fortune and we Venezuelans do not see an improvement in the quality of life. There are no visible projects, and public services are worse than ever,'' said Carmela Acosta, a retired teacher who lives in La Vega, a working-class section of southwest Caracas.

``And what has become of all that wealth?''

Analysts say the economy has fallen into a recession that will deepen this year, while the rest of Latin America recovers.

``Inflation this year could exceed 50 percent, a record,'' Robert Bottome, president of Veneconomia, an economic consulting firm in Caracas, told El Nuevo Herald.

Bottome explained that the crisis has been exacerbated by a combination of economic and monetary measures taken in recent months, including the devaluation of the bolivar, the confiscation of private property and price controls on basic items.

`BETRAYED'

A recent survey revealed that 55 percent reject Chávez, compared with 39 percent approval.

``Many Chávistas feel betrayed,'' Acosta said.

According to Oscar Schemel, president of the polling organization Hinterlaces, crime is the main issue cited by Venezuelans critical of Chávez. Figures published by various sources indicate 150,000 have been killed by mob violence between 1999 and 2009.

According to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, the main academic group that monitors crime, 80,000 of these deaths occurred in Caracas alone.

``Chávez was my president, but not anymore,'' said Rebecca Santos, a 39-year-old housewife who lives in the working class neighborhood El Cementerio, in southern Caracas. ``The situation is getting worse every day, you can no longer live given the blackouts and the runaway crime.''

``The Cuban presence in Venezuela and Cuban socialism has a disapproval rate of more than 80 percent,'' said Alfredo Keller, whose Caracas-based polling firm has conducted numerous studies on the subject.

The abrupt resignation on Jan. 25 of the vice president and Defense Minister, Ramon Carrizalez, one of the men most loyal to Chávez, was attributed to his dissatisfaction with the depth of involvement of the Cuban military in Venezuela.

``There is no doubt that the upset over the command that the Cubans have within the Venezuelan armed forces played a role in the resignation,'' said Rocio San Miguel, president of Control Ciudadano, a civilian organization that monitors military.

The departure of Carrizalez generated a wave of rumors of conspiracy and military unrest that forced Chávez to issue a warning.

``There are groups that are calling on the active military, inciting them. I recommend that they not do so because, before the country, I swear that my response would be thorough,'' Chávez said on Jan. 28.

Chávez's speeches emphasize his interest in helping the poorest of the country. Poverty, he said, fell from 70 percent in 1996 to only 26 percent today.

``There will come a day when no one in Venezuela is living in misery or living in poverty,'' Chávez said Friday.

However, many of the measures announced in the past three months have had a negative impact among the poorest Venezuelans.

Power outages are worsening the quality of life in slum neighborhoods; the closure of private businesses and shops has eliminated thousands of jobs; and the seizure of farmland has meant increasing shortages of basic consumer products such as corn, sugar and meat, which must now be imported from countries like Brazil and Argentina.

The national power grid, which in the past allowed Venezuela to sell electricity to neighboring countries, is about to collapse, as some authorities recently admitted.

The government announced a strict electricity rationing plan after the reservoirs at the Guri Dam, which supplies 70 percent of energy consumed in Venezuela, fell to historic lows in 2009.

TOTAL COLLAPSE

``If you keep lowering the level of the Guri reservoir, Venezuelans would be facing a severe energy crisis within 120 days, leading to a collapse of the national electric system,'' says a confidential report by the government-run National Electric Company, prepared in late December and obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

Chávez attributes the energy crisis to the prolonged drought, but experts believe that the main reason is the lack of investment in the electrical grid.

``The government has put a lot of money into the electrical system, but it has been stolen or wasted,'' said Victor Poleo, who was director of the Electrical Sector at the Ministry of Energy and Mines from 1999 to 2001.