RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events A message from the people of Venezuela to Hugo Chavez...

Voters reject Chavez’s constitutional changes
Sweeping measures would have broadened his power over Venezuela
Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez react in Caracas after hearing the result of Sunday's referendum.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez suffered a stunning defeat Monday in a referendum that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and impose a socialist system in this major U.S. oil provider.

Voters rejected the sweeping measures Sunday by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council. She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible.

Opposition supporters shouted with joy as Lucena announced the results on national television early Monday, their first victory against Chavez after nine years of electoral defeats.

Some broke down in tears. Others began chanting: “And now he’s going away!”

“This was a photo finish,” Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace, adding that he has “heard the voice of the people and will always continue to hear it.”

Chavez: ‘There is no dictatorship here’
Chavez said his respect for the outcome should vindicate his standing as a democrat.

“From this moment on, let’s be calm,” he declared. “There is no dictatorship here.”

Opponents — including Roman Catholic leaders, press freedom groups, human rights groups and prominent business leaders — feared the reforms would have granted Chavez unchecked power and threaten basic rights.

“Don’t feel sad,” Chavez urged supporters, who gave him a re-election victory with 63 percent of the vote exactly a year ago. He blamed the loss by “microscopic margins” on low turnout among his supporters. Voter participation was 56 percent overall.

The defeated reforms would have created new forms of communal property, let Chavez handpick local leaders under a redrawn political map, lengthened presidential terms from six to seven years and let Chavez seek re-election indefinitely. Now, Chavez will be barred from running again in 2012.

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.

Along with several hundred other dejected Chavez supporters, Nelly Hernandez, a 37-year-old street vendor, cried as she wandered outside the presidential palace amid broken beer bottles while government employees dismantled a stage that had been prepared for a possible victory.

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

Chavez urged calm and restraint. “To those who voted against my proposal, I thank them and congratulate them,” he said.

“I ask all of you to go home, know how to handle your victory,” the 53-year-old president said. “You won it. I wouldn’t have wanted that Pyrrhic victory.”

President Hugo Chavez asked supporters Sunday to petition for a constitutional amendment that would let him seek indefinite re-election and buy more time to build a socialist economy in Venezuela.

Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, is barred from running again when his current term expires in 2013. He sought to abolish term limits last year, but Venezuelan voters rejected the bid, voting down a package of proposed constitutional changes.

"Last year, when we lost the referendum, I said I should accept the majority's decision," the former paratroop commander told a crowd of red-clad government supporters at a rally in Caracas. But now, he added, "I say you were right: Chavez will not go."

Any new attempt at a reform, which must be approved in a nationwide referendum, would open a new front for tensions between government-backers and their rivals — many of whom warn that Chavez wants to be president for life.

Opposition leader Gerardo Blyde said Chavez's plan to end presidential term limits would be overwhelmingly defeated.

"It's going to be an uphill battle for him," said Blyde, who suggested that many Chavistas are losing faith in "El Comandante" as his government struggles to curb 36 percent annual inflation in Caracas, fight rampant crime and rebuild crumbling infrastructure.

Neighboring Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, meanwhile, recalled his top diplomat in Maracaibo, Venezuela's second largest city, hours after Chavez threatened to expel the official for privately praising the opposition for winning five governoships and two important mayor's office in elections in Venezuela last week.

In a clandestinely record private telephone conversation, Consul Carlos Galvis called the opposition's gains "very good news." The recording was broadcast on state television.

Galvis lamented that Venezuela's state security forces were apparently eavesdropping on him, calling it a "violation of one of my fundamental rights, the right to privacy."

But the consul also told Bogota-based RCN television that a Venezuelan journalist had "cloned" mobile and fixed telephones at the consulate, suggesting that someone else may have made the phone call pretending to be him.