Ex-general challenges Chavez Venezuela "coup" move

CARACAS (Reuters) - In a dawn paratrooper raid to rescue Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from coup plotters, Gen. Raul Baduel forged his reputation as a defender of the constitutional order by ending a brief 2002 putsch.

After retiring this year as defense minister, he now says he is fighting to protect Venezuela from another coup -- this time by trying to defeat constitutional changes proposed by Chavez to scrap term limits and create a socialist state.

Considered for years a top Chavez ally, Baduel suddenly this month joined a chorus of criticism that Chavez wants to concentrate power in the OPEC nation with the changes, which voters are likely to pass in a December 2 referendum.

"This is a clear and evident usurpation and confiscation (of power) by the executive branch," Baduel said in an interview in his Caracas office, which is decorated with Buddha effigies and a five-foot- (1.5-meter-)tall Samurai statue.

"They are ... carrying out a coup," he said.

Chavez, godfather to the youngest of Baduel's eleven children, called him a traitor.

"The extreme right has found another pawn, he betrayed himself and the prestige he had earned," said Chavez, who this year launched a nationalization drive to install Cuba-inspired socialism in a country that is the No. 4 U.S. oil supplier.

The general's stand is the highest-profile break from the president over plans that have been criticized already by a pro-Chavez political party, the Roman Catholic church, university students and even his usually loyal ex-wife.

So far, Baduel has avoided embracing the fractured and weak opposition while quietly suggesting he is considering a political future in a polarized country where Chavez's leadership of the left is virtually uncontested.

But he has emerged as one of the clearest voices calling for a "No" vote against changes that could also give Chavez the power to appoint his favorites over elected regional officials and take direct control of central bank currency reserves.

Baduel has raised the specter that the military might not fully back Chavez's policies but he refuses to speak for an institution Chavez, a former paratrooper, is believed to control.

Polls show the virulently anti-U.S. Chavez will likely win the referendum with the backing of the nation's poor, who support his oil-financed food and health subsidies.

Unlike last year when Chavez swept to re-election, pollsters say voters appear evenly split over his reform package after a campaign hit by violent demonstrations. But they say sweeteners such as a shortened workday will galvanize Chavez backers and that opposition abstention will be high.

CONSPIRATOR, COMRADE AND CONFIDANT

Baduel, 52, became a confidant of Chavez in the early 1980s when he joined a group of leftist military conspirators who vowed to launch a revolution. They carried out a failed coup in 1992 that catapulted Chavez to fame.

Formal and courteous, Baduel is a devoted student of Asian religion and a follower of the Samurai Bushido code that calls on warriors to respect their adversaries.

Baduel typically reads stilted statements in public, in contrast to Chavez's spontaneous, folksy style that has built up his appeal since his first election in 1998.

After taking office, Chavez tapped him to lead the army's paratrooper battalion that later in 2002 broke the back of a bungled coup attempt, cementing his alliance with the president and foreshadowing his rise to defense minister.

But in his July retirement speech Baduel said Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution risked repeating errors of the Soviets and squandering Venezuela's oil wealth.

"Baduel is projecting himself," said Alberto Garrido, a political analyst who has closely studied Chavez and his circle of military cohorts. "He is trying to gain greater influence in the opposition and maybe even among Chavist supporters."

(Editing by Saul Hudson and David Storey)