BY TIM JOHNSON

  WASHINGTON - The Bush administration suggested Thursday that Venezuela's firebrand leader should agree to early elections as a way to end a turbulent political crisis.

  Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich said ''an awful lot of tension'' is building in Venezuela, a major supplier of crude oil to the United States, requiring U.S. diplomats to monitor the country ``literally on an hourly basis.''

  Reich, who is the senior Bush administration policymaker on Latin America, indicated that President Hugo Chávez should bend on his claim that a referendum on his government must wait until next August, half way through his six-year term.

  ''This is the time to resolve Venezuela's difficulties peacefully, democratically and constitutionally, through an election,'' Reich said in a policy speech at the Heritage
  Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

  Reich's remarks echoed statements by the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, César Gaviria, who is in Caracas to mediate between the Chávez government and its opposition. Gaviria said he had reached a ''preliminary accord'' for the two sides to begin talks next week.

  ''What this country needs is an electoral way out [of the crisis],'' Gaviria said at a news conference in Caracas.

  Reich hailed the efforts of Gaviria, a former president of Colombia, saying the OAS secretary-general is ''risking a great deal of his prestige in trying to bring peace'' to Venezuela. ''We sense a timely opportunity to achieve national reconciliation,'' Reich said.

  Gaviria and his OAS staff are working in conjunction with officials of the United Nations Development Program and experts working with former President Jimmy Carter.

  The parallel demands by Reich and Gaviria for early elections may raise suspicions within the Chávez government, which has viewed the OAS chief as too close to the Bush administration and sees the Cuban-born Reich, a frequent critic of Chávez, as an ideological foe.

  Reich was widely criticized, both in the United States and the hemisphere, for quickly recognizing a civilian-military junta that briefly ousted Chávez April 12-14. The coup was later overturned. Reich has said his recognition of the de facto regime was based on reports that Chávez had willingly resigned.

  Reich called on Chávez to tone down his fiery discourse, disarm his followers and answer questions about whether he ordered troops to fire on protesters during a
  march April 11. Shooting during the protests left 19 people dead.

  He said the bulk of responsibility for ending the polarization of Venezuela lies with Chávez, not his opposition.