Venezuela rejects "Dictator for life" Constitutional reforms

Chavez loses constitutional vote - Yahoo! News



CARACAS, Venezuela - Humbled by his first electoral defeat ever, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.

"I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent.

Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight â?? with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by elections council chief Tibisay Lucena.

Some shed tears. Others began chanting: "And now he's going away!"

Without the overhaul, Chavez will be barred from running again in 2012.

Foes of the reform effort â?? including Roman Catholic leaders, media freedom groups, human rights groups and prominent business leaders â?? said it would have granted Chavez unchecked power and imperiled basic rights.

Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace that the outcome of Sunday's balloting had taught him that "Venezuelan democracy is maturing." His respect for the verdict, he asserted, proves he is a true democratic leader.

"From this moment on, let's be calm," he proposed, asking for no more street violence like the clashes that marred pre-vote protests. "There is no dictatorship here."

A senior U.S. official hailed Chavez's referendum defeat Monday as a victory for the country's citizens who want to preserve democracy and prevent Chavez from having unchecked power.

"We felt that this referendum would make Chavez president for life, and that's not ever a welcome development," U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters in Singapore. "In a country that wants to be a democracy, the people spoke, and the people spoke for democracy and against unlimited power."

Chavez, who was briefly ousted in a failed 2002 coup, blamed the loss on low turnout among the very supporters who re-elected him a year ago with 63 percent of the vote.

Seven in 10 eligible voters cast ballots then. This time it was just 56 percent.

The defeated reform package would have created new types of communal property, let Chavez handpick local leaders under a redrawn political map and suspended civil liberties during extended states of emergency.

Other changes would have shortened the workday from eight hours to six, created a social security fund for millions of informal laborers and promoted communal councils where residents decide how to spend government funds.

Nelly Hernandez, a 37-year-old street vendor, cried as she wandered outside the presidential palace early Monday amid broken beer bottles as government workers took apart a stage mounted earlier for a victory fete.

"It's difficult to accept this, but Chavez has not abandoned us, he'll still be there for us," she said between sobs.

A close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Chavez has redistributed more oil wealth than past Venezuelan leaders, and also has aided Latin American allies â?? including Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua â?? that have followed Venezuela's turn to the left.

"He is a man who feels for the people, a man who has suffered, a man who comes from below," Carlos Orlando Vega, a 47-year-old carpenter's assistant, said outside a polling station in a Caracas slum on Sunday.

Vega is among tens of thousands of Venezuelans who, under Chavez, have new government-provided homes.

Chavez urged calm and restraint after his Sunday setback.

"I wouldn't have wanted that Pyrrhic victory," he said, suggesting a small margin wouldn't have been enough of a mandate.

Tensions surged in the weeks ahead of Sunday's vote, with university students leading protests and occasionally clashing with police and Chavista groups.

Chavez had warned opponents against inciting violence before the vote, and threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States if the Bush administration interfered.

Chavez, 53, also suffered some high-profile defections by political allies, including former defense minister Gen. Raul Baduel.

Early Monday, Baduel reminded fellow Venezuelans that Chavez still wields special decree powers thanks to a pliant National Assembly packed with his supporters.

"These results can't be recognized as a victory," Baduel told reporters,

Baduel, who as defense minister helped Chavez turn back the 2002 putsch, said Venezuela can only be properly united by convening a popularly elected assembly to rewrite its constitution.

Chavez has progressively steamrolled a fractured opposition since he was first elected in 1998, and his allies now control most elected posts.

At opposition headquarters in an affluent east Caracas district, jubilant Chavez foes sang the national anthem.

"This reform was about democracy or totalitarian socialism, and democracy won," said opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez said.

"At least now we have the guarantee that Chavez will leave power," said Valeria Aguirre, a 22-year-old student who had braved tear gas during street protests.

Lucena, the electoral agency chief, called the vote "the calmest we've had in the last 10 years."

All was reported calm during Sunday's voting but 45 people were detained, most for committing ballot-related crimes like "destroying electoral materials," said Gen. Jesus Gonzalez, chief of a military command overseeing security.

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Hey Ozark.....

I wonder why any leftwing commie supporters comment on this? Hummmmmm?????


France moving away from socailism....Venazuala moving from socailism....

why are we running toward it?

Like Ronald Reagan said.....

Socialism works in HELL where they dont need it, and in Heaven where they all ready have it

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asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.

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So do they mean one big, final election to rule for life? Or do they mean running as many times as he wants. Because in this respect, if it's running as many times as he wants that would be moving from president to prime minister, not dictator.
From what little I've heard of his proposed reforms though, many in his new socialized state would have been dictatorial .

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I wonder why any leftwing commie supporters [don't] comment on this? Hummmmmm?????

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I don't think these boards have many communist supporters Bong30. Now if you just mean any left-wingers, though "communist" is far too extreme a term; I'd respectfully ask that you not take every opportunity to flaunt your percieved supperiority of right over left. If you'd like to debate the content of the thread topic, that would be far more productive than these constant conedescending remarks toward our left-leaning members which always seem to end with "Hummmmmmmmmm?". There is more to politics than putting down left-wingers, is there not?

I thought my post was right on point....

Left wing = correct
commie= correct (means of production owned by state)

See grey the way it works around here with the lefty is.... you post a good point about how somethng like this is a major story, BUT it doest fit the left leaning socialist agenda....NOBODY SAYS SHIT

you post right wing christian shit.... the leftys come out of the wood work.....

The "Hummmmm" is, they say it all when they say nothing.

Hummmmmm????????

This story was the biggest story of the week.


headline should have been

HUGO GETS ASS HANDED TO HIM

FINGER FLIPPED TO SOCIALISM

SOCIALISM NOT HERE HUGO

i didnt see anything like that????

WHY DIDNT WE HEAR ALL ABOUT IT ON THE LEFT LEANING MEADIA?. yes we heard a little about it.

Ill tell you why....it doesnt fit the left leaning commie propaganda the main stram meadia puts out all day.

Remeber Hugo...was trying to put 64 ammendments to the constitution you call him prime minister. I and the 51% of Venz, will NOT call him DICtator.

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Originally Posted by Bong30

commie= correct (means of production owned by state)

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please get it right.
socialist = means of production controlled by the state
communism = means of production controlled by the workers

as a communist of autonomist leanings i find it important to differentiate between the two. while most marxist theory is centered on the idea that a communalist state must pass through a phase of socialism, it seems to me that the socialist agenda adhered to by the nouveau-left leads only to the creation of a tyrannical ruling class and leads to enslavement of the people instead of the workers' paradise envisioned by those who consider themselves communists.

i don't mind being called a commie, but i'd prefer it was for the proper reasons.

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WHY DIDN'T WE HEAR ALL ABOUT IT ON THE LEFT LEANING MEDIA?.

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i'm afraid we heard little about it not because it didn't agree with any socialist agenda, but because it just wasn't sensational enough. a chavez victory would have meant a nearly indefinite number of years of tension between the us and venezuela and that sort of thing sells newspapers and air time. his defeat means only that that particular gravy train may soon end and with it his vitriolic and sometimes spectacular attacks on anyone who dares to disagree with his rather slanted view of reality.

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Originally Posted by Bong30

Hey Ozark.....

I wonder why any leftwing commie supporters comment on this? Hummmmmm?????

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I'm sure they aren't to disappointed, he can't run for reelection, but he still has 5 years left on his term.

No telling what kind of "emergency" might arise between now and then.

Rest assured, Chavez has not let gone of his political ambitions. :(

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Originally Posted by Innominate

Rest assured, Chavez has not let gone of his political ambitions. :(

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words of wisdom ... next, he'll try the 'back door' ... "Socialism is only Communism without a gun" :jointsmile:

i love the way any time some one says they are liberal the conservatives automaticaly brand them as commies or socialist. guess what we are not all commies or socialist. not all dems are liberal either just as not all repubs are conservatives.

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Originally Posted by yokinazu

i love the way any time some one says they are liberal the conservatives automaticaly brand them as commies or socialist. guess what we are not all commies or socialist. not all dems are liberal either just as not all repubs are conservatives.

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don't know who you're talking about, but I'm talking about Chavez, and last time I heard, he was neither a Republican, or Democrat (although, he would be a Democrat, what with all his nationalization of services agenda) ... :D