Now that Venezuelans have weighed in on their president's fate, they will face many challenges -- and more elections -- in the not-so-distant future.

BY STEVEN DUDLEY

CARACAS - Venezuelans hoped to end a long and grinding political crisis with Sunday's historic recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez, but it will take much more before stability returns to this oil-rich nation, analysts say.

''We keep thinking that this is the end,'' said Agustín Blanco, a professor of contemporary history at the Central University in Caracas. ``But the problems are getting more profound.''

If he loses, Chávez might run for election one month from now. And whether he wins or loses, there will be a presidential election in 2006.

''These are going to be very tough days ahead, no matter who wins,'' Blanco said.

The divisions in Venezuela run deep, and Sunday's recall vote reflected them. More than half of Venezuela's 25 million people live in poverty, and polls show that the majority of Chávez's followers are from the poorer sections of the cities and countryside.

Most middle- and upper-class Venezuelans, on the other hand, are firmly against the president. They see him as steering the country toward a Cuba-like dictatorship and economic ruin.

''I have been polling countries for years, and I've never seen a country as divided as Venezuela,'' said Mark Feierstein, the associate vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in Washington.

DIVISIONS RUN DEEP

While class distinctions are important, political tradition is fundamental in Venezuela. From 1958 and 1998, two political parties, Democratic Action and COPEI, ran Venezuela operating under a share-and-share pact known as Puntofijo.

Chávez broke that cozy arrangement. He was an army lieutenant colonel before entering politics on the biggest stage. In 1992, he and several junior officers attempted to overthrow President Carlos Andrés Perez. The coup failed, but it gave Chávez a platform he has yet to relinquish. In 1994, he was pardoned; in 1998, he was elected president.

In the six years since, Chávez has done much to exacerbate the class and political divisions in this country with his fiery rhetoric and exclusionary politics.

He has called his opponents ''the squalid ones'' and ''the devil,'' and makes constant reference to their fancy cars and expensive clothes, as if it were a crime to be rich.

He has attacked the unfriendly Bush administration at almost every turn, apparently bent on overshadowing his domestic problems with a foreign threat.

''He doesn't know how to negotiate. He doesn't know how to integrate people,'' said retired Gen. Alberto Mueller, a former Chávez aide.

Chávez's opposition has done its share to polarize the country as well. In April 2002, military officers supported by opposition and business sector leaders engineered a coup. Chávez loyalists restored him to power two days later.

In December 2003, the opposition launched a general strike. The strike paralyzed Venezuela's economy for months, but eventually failed to drive him from power.

`TRUE DEVELOPMENT'

''To resolve this, there has to be a learning process on both sides,'' said Francine Jacomé, a political scientist at INVESP, a Venezuelan think tank. ``We have to have true economic development to alleviate problems like poverty and unemployment.''

But neither side has shown a capacity to deal with Venezuela's most fundamental problems. Chávez has started several public health and education programs. But critics say they are more show than reality.

''He's supposed to be a revolutionary,'' said Michael Shifter, director of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington D.C. ``But he's implemented the classic political devices that the [traditional political parties] used in the 1960s and '70s.''

And like the traditional parties, Chávez has relied on the largess of the state, which comes from oil exports, to try to win the loyalty of the masses.

''It's a fight over the cookie jar, which is oil,'' said Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.

Ironically, some analysts say, a political solution may lie in the old model of the Puntofijo. Such an agreement may not be far off. On Friday, Chávez invited the opposition to join him for lunch this week.

Whether Chávez will host that lunch in the presidential palace depends on the outcome of Sunday's recall vote.