Taken as a whole, these programs fail to form a broad, coherent public policy, said Luis Pedro España, a poverty expert and director of the Institute of Economic and Social Studies at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas. But they go a long way toward explaining Mr. Chávez's enduring popularity as the economy shrinks. The programs - ranging from new homes to subsidized food markets to mobile clinics - are welcomed in long-neglected barrios, deftly spread, and then their importance inflated, Mr. España said. "The government does not really have a social policy," he said. "What they have is social theater."
………….. The programs have the feel of old-style patronage. With them, Mr. Chávez has managed to erase doubt among followers by taking up the populist script in a way that has not been seen in Latin America in recent years, spending hours with crowds of followers. In Caricuao, a poor neighborhood of Soviet-style apartment blocks in southwest Caracas, his aides led a hunched group of elderly women from the crowd and provided them seating under a white tent, just feet from the president, who was there to inaugurate the first of what will be 100 markets across the city. Afterward, they expressed everlasting loyalty.
"He does not care if you are rich or poor," explained Irda de Belandria, 66. "His heart is so pure." But for the neighborhood, the affection for Mr. Chávez may outlast the material effect of the markets, which offer only a modest assortment of goods like canned products, powdered milk and sugar. Even the actual opening was unclear. The president left, and military officers shut the metal gates over the storefront. One woman asked when it would reopen. "I do not know," a military official said. "They told us tomorrow, maybe."***