Pro-Chavez supporters in front of the presidential palace on referendum night, Feb. 15, 2009. The man in the front is holding up a portrait of Venezuelan independence fighter Simon Bolivar. (Ariana Cubillos/Associated Press)

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To say Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a great communicator would be an understatement.

He is one of the best on the planet.

In his speeches — and there are many — he effortlessly shifts from a kind of lounge-lizard crooner to evangelical preacher to devoted soldier of the socialist revolution bent on pulverizing his enemies.

But he and his formidable political machine added something new to the repertoire during the recent referendum campaign. Following in the electronic footsteps of U.S. President Barack Obama, Chavez is now text-messaging his potential supporters.

A man of many moods, President Hugo Chavez sings the national anthem during a welcoming ceremony for China's Vice-President Xi Jinping in February 2009. (Fernando Llano/Associated Press)

My first taste of this was on the Sunday morning of the referendum as Venezuelans lined up to say Yes or No to abolishing term limits for their president (and all other politicians).

When my local cellphone buzzed, I wondered who it could be as very few people here had my local number. Turned out it was Hugo.

"I'm calling you from my heart. Don't let me down. I will not fail you. I am your soldier. I live for you and because of you. Vote Yes. (Signed) Hugo Chavez."

It read more like a Valentine's Day note than a political call to the polls. But how did he get my number anyway? I just bought that local chip about three days before.

The revolution is pleased

My next text message was Sunday evening, before Venezuela's electoral commission had declared a winner. The text called on everyone to head to the streets to celebrate the victory of the pro-Chavez forces.

"Congratulations for your work," it read. "The country and the revolution thank you." Hugo Chavez didn't sign this one. Maybe he was too busy preparing his victory speech.

From the balcony of the presidential palace, Chavez then declared himself a candidate for the 2012 elections.

"You have written my destiny, my political destiny, which is the same as my life's destiny," he said. "After the strong winds of victory started to blow tonight, here in my solitude I said to myself 'My God, now what am I going to do? My God, what am I going to say to the people?'"

Born to run

Chavez has given a few hints of what he might do next, now that he's free to run for president as long as he wants.

For one, he's promising to do a better job of combating crime, even though he's rarely raised the subject during his decade in power.

Police officers ask men for their identifications during a routine patrol in Caracas in November 2008. Caracas is considered one of the most crime-ridden cities. (Ariana Cubillos/Associated Press)

But one thing that unites pro- and anti-Chavez Venezuelans is their fear of violent street crime, especially in the capital, Caracas.

Pollsters say it tops the list of worries — and with good reason. While I was there, the local paper reported 18 murders on a single Friday night. Residents told me that was completely normal.

There are 26 million people in Venezuela (about seven million fewer than in Canada) and the country has over 10,000 homicides every year. What's more, the murder rate has almost doubled since Chavez took office and is now higher than in drug-riven Colombia.

The economy, too

Crime isn't the only challenge on the government's agenda. The dramatic drop in the price of oil (Venezuela is an important international producer) and the worldwide recession are also serious concerns.

"We have to take into account the world economic crisis," says writer Roberto Hernandez Montoya, who runs the government's Centre for Latin American Studies. "It's going to affect us. Not as deeply as other countries but we are going to be affected. It's inevitable."

Venezuela may avoid the recession, Hernandez says. "We are going to have economic growth this year. Nobody knows by how much."

But running a revolution on dwindling oil income is going to be tough. People want the government to deliver, he says, particularly on the big plans such as health care.

Opposition parties here predict that the rising crime rates, high inflation and less oil money to spread around might eat away at Chavez's popularity. That remains to be seen.

His rivals have had 10 years to build a platform and find a leader who can compete with the charismatic Chavez — and they're still searching.

Despite their referendum loss, they take solace in the fact that nearly 10 million Venezuelans either voted No or didn't vote at all in the Feb. 15 referendum. (More than 6.3 million, 54 per cent of the votes cast, voted with Chavez; 5.2 million voted against him and over four million abstained.)

It was the second referendum in just over a year in which Chavez had sought to change the electoral rules over term limits.

Test of the communicators

In power, Chavez has always been able to count on Venezuela's poor to back him up because he has spent much of his revolution trying to divert a share of the country's vast oil riches down to those who need it most.

That was easier to do when so much cash was flowing into government coffers.

But oil profits aren't the only pillar of the revolution that is wobbling these days, observes Alberto Barrera Tyszka, who co-wrote a somewhat critical biography of the president.

Chavez will also have to do without his ideological foe in the form of now ex-U.S. president George W. Bush.

"Bush was the perfect enemy," says Barrera, because Chavez needed an important foil in order to be taken seriously by the rest of the world. "Chavez spent the whole Bush administration insulting the U.S. president, treating him as if he were a real threat. Now with Obama, that will be a lot more difficult."

Chavez has been saying in the past couple of months that he is ready to meet with President Obama and senior people in his government are hoping that will happen soon.

In the meantime, there is considerable outreach to be done just on the home front, says Hernandez at the Centre for Latin American Studies. Chavez's legendary communication skills clearly haven't rubbed off on the rest of his government.

"We haven't been successful in presenting our discourse to the people," Hernandez says. "We have made almost no effort to explain what we want. And many people are in fear and sometimes in panic. And panic makes people stupid."

Will that dialogue happen? It's hard to predict. When I met with the spokesman for the Catholic Episcopal Conference on this visit, he said the church doesn't have open and frank discussions with the government anymore.

When Chavez first arrived in office, he invited the church to the table because it supported his efforts to help the poor. But the minute the church expressed any concerns at all, it was banished.

In fact, in Venezuela, Chavez's political foes are rarely referred to even as the opposition. They are more often called "the enemy." And that's a very difficult place from which to start a dialogue.