Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, will never leave power willingly. He intends to hold onto the leadership reins forever. At least, until the year 2021. Which is what he has stated. And he will use any means at his disposal _ including violence and the military _ to nail himself to the presidential chair.

When a group of foreign correspondents pressed him on whether he would surrender power if he lost the presidential election on Dec. 3, Chavez said he would. However, you cannot trust what he says.

If Chavez loses the vote, he could then use all his government resources to allege fraud or a presumed coup d'etat and remain where he is. It's that easy.

Chavez controls almost everything in Venezuela: the army's high ranking generals are loyal to him; he speaks on radio and television whenever he feels like it; 100 percent of the National Assembly is made up of Chavez followers; most of the judges on the Supreme Court are "Chavistas"; the Constitution was written by his top collaborators; and if all that weren't enough, the National Electoral Council, in charge of organizing and monitoring the election, has shown an obvious bias for Chavez.

This is important. And dangerous. The National Electoral Council is neither an independent or autonomous agency, though it pretends to be. Its five members were elected by a majority of votes in the National Assembly. And as we've already seen, all 167 members of the Venezuelan National Assembly belong to Chavez's party.

It is logical, then, that "Chavistas" chose other Chavez partisans to preside over the National Electoral Council, and that if there were any dispute on Election Day those partisans would surely favor Chavez.
So it is virtually impossible (for the opposition) to win, legally, against Chavez.

Recent polls in Venezuela haven't succeeded in convincing me. Just as in Nicaragua in 1990, there are too many threats and pressures for potential voters to confidently tell polltakers who they really plan to vote for.

Here is an example of intimidation:
About a month ago, the president of state oil company PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, said to the firm's principal executives, "We are going to do all we have to do to support our president (Chavez), and anyone here who isn't comfortable with that will have to give up his job to a Bolivarian (Chavez supporter)."

Ramirez's threatening speech was secretly recorded and is now on the Internet (See www.youtube.com). The message is clear: Those government workers not willing to help in the Chavez campaign or who don't vote for him may lose their jobs. There is no doubt that all of the State's resources have been used for Chavez's re-election.

Speaking from personal observation, nothing leads me to trust or believe in the election's transparency, or in Chavez's word that he will surrender power if he loses.
Chavez has lied to me on two occasions.

First time: On Dec. 5, 1998, I asked Chavez whether he would be "willing to surrender power after five years."
"Of course, I'm willing to surrender power," he emphatically replied.

He lied. He wasn't willing to relinquish power _ he changed the Constitution to allow his re-election and now he plans to stay in power for 15 more years.

Second time: In the same interview, I questioned Chavez about the Cuban government, and he responded, "Yes, it's a dictatorship." I have the interview on video to prove it. At that time, Chavez wanted to be seen as a moderate. But it was just a mask.

In a subsequent interview (in February 2000), when I reminded Chavez about his comment about the "dictatorship" in Cuba, he wouldn't acknowledge it and said: "Who am I to condemn the Cuban regime?" Now, the same man who once referred to Cuba as a "dictatorship" calls himself (Cuban leader) Fidel Castro's "brother." What hypocrisy!
Chavez appears to say and do whatever is necessary to remain in power. And a person like that cannot be called a democrat anywhere on this planet. Chavez has lied in the past and will keep on lying if it suits his interests.

It is true Chavez has won many elections and that he has the support of millions of Venezuela's poor. Nobody can take that away from him. But neither can anyone deny that he has used the multimillion resources of Venezuela's oil to boost his image as a world class leader.

Today, however, many Venezuelans are as poor or poorer than when Chavez came to power; inflation is the highest in Latin America (16 percent); and the government has curbed so many freedoms that it could easily be defined as an authoritarian and militaristic regime.

Maybe most Venezuelans want a change and will show it in the ballot boxes by voting for opposition candidate Manuel Rosales. The fear, the real fear, however, is that we may never know. Why? Because in Venezuela everything is Hugo Chavez, willingly or not.