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Message: Ditto on Chavez Win
Venezuela's Chavez wins vote to allow re-election
Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:16pm EST
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By Patrick Markey
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez won the right to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections in a referendum vote on Sunday that bolsters support for his socialist and anti-U.S. policies.
Electoral authorities said 54 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment to remove limits on re-election and allow Chavez to stay in office until he is defeated at the ballot box in the OPEC nation. Forty-six percent voted "No."
The margin of victory was larger than expected after opinion polls before the vote had given Chavez only a slim lead.
Chavez, whose current term ends in 2013, has already been in power for 10 years and his win in this referendum win helps clear the way for him to fulfill stated his declared goal of ruling for decades.
The victory on Sunday allows Chavez, 54, to put behind him a damaging vote loss in 2007, when his first attempt to remove constitutional restraints on his extended rule was defeated.
But overshadowing his victory is the global economic crisis, which will limit his ability to spend oil cash on nationalizing industries and extending his influence overseas.
Fireworks exploded above Caracas and caravans of cars and mortorbikes sped through the city as Chavez supporters clad in the red of his self-styled revolution celebrated honking their horns and chanting "Heh-ho, Chavez won't go."
"This can't stop, because the future of this country is in the president's hands," said Juan Carlos Carrillo, 40, a clothes vendor who voted in Caracas for Chavez.
The loss was a huge blow to the fragmented opposition, which had made gains in votes in recent years.
Opposition leaders, who say Chavez is an autocrat bent on sculpting Venezuela into a replica of communist Cuba, had tried to capture discontent over crime, economic mismanagement and corruption in the polarized country.
(Editing by Saul Hudson and Kieran Murray)
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