CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader  Manuel Rosales, under investigation for corruption, has gone  into hiding to escape alleged persecution by President Hugo  Chavez, his party said yesterday.

Rosales is the most visible face of Venezuela’s fractured  opposition movement and he was beaten by the socialist Chavez  in the 2006 presidential election.

His move to escape arrest could help the socialist Chavez  consolidate his control over the OPEC nation as the government  faces a tumble in oil prices that forces cuts in popular social  welfare programmes.

Chavez last year vowed to jail Rosales, who denies the  charges against him.

Omar Barboza, an official with Rosales’ party A New Time,  said the opposition leader had moved to “a safe place” to avoid  arrest by the government.

“It is not possible for Manuel Rosales to exercise his  right to defend himself in Venezuela,” Barboza said.

Critics accuse Chavez of using justice selectively in a  country where corruption is rampant, but his government says it  is a simple corruption investigation and wants Rosales tried on  charges of illicit enrichment while behind bars.

“I don’t think it does any favours to the country when  people don’t face justice,” Communications Minister Jesse  Chacon said yesterday after Rosales went into hiding.

Chavez’s government has used the legal system to sideline  other opposition leaders. Last year officials blocked the  candidacy of Leopoldo Lopez, who was favoured to win election in  Caracas and seen as a possible future presidential candidate.

Rosales’ move may lead Chavez to pursue similar legal  attacks on high-profile opposition governors and mayors, who he  has frequently describes as corrupt. A state prosecutor says Rosales failed to demonstrate the  origin of part of his income between 2002 and 2004 while he was  governor of the state of the oil-rich state of Zulia, citing a  report showing that around $60,000 could not be explained.

The court hearing the case has not yet decided if Rosales  should go to trial, his attorney said. A close Rosales ally  denied rumours he had fled the country, and his attorney said he  has no restrictions on leaving Venezuela.

Rosales accuses Chavez of politicizing state institutions  such as courts and police in efforts to build a dictatorship.

A conviction would block Rosales from running for president  again and could result in a prison term of up to 10 years.

Last October. while campaigning for his allies in elections  for governors and mayors, Chavez called Rosales a drug dealer  and a thief. “I am determined to put Manuel Rosales in jail,”  he said.

Chavez won a referendum vote in February that allows him to  run for re-election as many times as he wants. He still remains  broadly popular even as falling oil prices have cut into vital  oil revenues.

But a number of Chavez allies lost in elections last year  for governors and mayors and even supporters complain of shoddy  power and water systems and unchecked crime, putting opposition  leaders back on the political map for the first time in years.

Chavez responded by increasing centralized control over  police forces and hospitals, and this month sent troops to take  over ports and airports in opposition-run states including  Zulia, now governed by a Rosales protege.