At a mass rally of PSUV activists in the Poliedro Stadium on November 18, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for "Operation Round Up" to gather the maximum number of votes for candidates of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in the November 23 elections for state governors and municipal mayors.
The enthusiastic rally of around 8000 were attending the final meeting of the PSUV campaign in the Caracas region, preparing for the last days of organising before polling day.
"If we have done what we had to do, if we have touched base with the people, if we have used the right tactics … if we have convinced those who were not convinced, if the logistics are properly organised, if the red campaign has been strong enough … then we could win all the governors", Chavez told the crowd, according to the November 19 Ultimas Noticias.
"The people in the street, together with the National Armed Forces, are the guarantors that the result of the popular vote will be respected", Chavez added.
This meeting followed the final mass march and rally in central Caracas on November 15, which attracted tens of thousands of PSUV supporters who gathered at five points in the city and marched to Plaza O´Leary in the inner suburb of Silencio.
The crowd applauded speeches by PSUV candidates Aristibulo Isturiz for mayor of Greater Caracas and Jorge Rodriquez for mayor of the huge municipality of Libertador. They also danced to Chavista bands and responded to rousing chants and rap music.
At a huge rally in the oil-rich and hotly contested state of Zulia on November 16, Chavez urged the people to "liberate the region", which has been ruled by corrupt, right-wing opposition leader Manuel Rosales.
Chavez called for support for the PSUV candidate for governor, Gian Carlo Di Martino.
At a separate campaign meeting in Zulia the same day, Di Martino declared that if he won, "the first 100 days of government would be aimed at repairing the damage caused by Manuel Rosales", the November 17 Diario Vea reported.
The November 15 Ultimas Noticias reported that at a November 14 mass meeting in the state of Anzoategui, Chavez warned the corporate media: "No one is allowed to announce the results of the November 23 elections before the CNE (National Electoral Commission). If any communications media act before the official closure, they will be taken off the air."
While maintaining a hectic pace of election campaigning, Chavez has also been opening public projects, as part of the revolutionary Bolivarian government's program of expanding social and economic development in the country.
Inaugurating a new milk plant in the state of Barinas, Chavez described socialist economic development as "a school for the transformation of the human spirit and consciousness". This process creates workers who are "conscious workers, not alienated workers", he said, according to the November 17 Diario Vea.
Such development "produces the new human being, and the new society — socialism".
Chavez announced that the government would soon build 11 more milk processing plants similar to that in Barinas, which was established with the assistance of the Iranian government.
The November 16 Diario Vea also reported Chavez's speech at a graduation ceremony for tertiary students studying as part of Mission Sucre on November 15. Chavez described Mission Sucre (a government program which has provided more than 350,000 Venezuelans with free university education since 2003) as "the spirit of the Bolivarian Revolution".
The previous day, the president had opened a new fish-processing factory in the port of Puerto Cabello in Carabobo state, declaring that such projects were essential for the progress of the revolution.