Chavez softens tone for 2008

[Clanfear]

CARACAS, Jan 2 (Reuters) - If 2007 was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's year to drive forward a grandiose vision of revolutionary socialism, 2008 could be the year for getting trash off the streets and putting milk on store shelves.

Chavez appears to be softening his combative rhetoric and focusing on supporters' concrete problems after a referendum vote in December defeated his push to create a socialist state and run indefinitely for reelection.

Offering amnesty to coup members and dissidents that authorities had doggedly pursued for five years signals Chavez may try to build bridges with an opposition fresh off its first victory since he was elected in 1998.

He fell out of step with supporters in May by taking the country's most popular television station off the air for its role in the 2002 coup, removing soap operas and game shows beloved by many working class Venezuelans.

And even the most stalwart of Chavez backers have grown frustrated with hours of waiting in long supermarket lines due to shortages of goods like milk, eggs and beef sparked by strict price controls.


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