http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7124313.stm Very close, Very very close, 51% to 49 %, His referendum failed, but I'm guessing he's not out of the political arena yet.
I hardly call it a defeat , as his popularity grows the people trust him with each year next year it will be 51% .
I try not to get excitd about stuff like that, complicated matters in foreign lands, but that's very good news,that vote. Venezuela's got a chance.
And since Chavez called on his supporters not to use the referendum as a cause for conflict, It solidified his image as a believer in democracy. I have to admit, I was scared when he tried to change the constitution, I thought this was another revolution gone mad.
defeated, despite his monopolistic control of vote counting, and the famous Black List that his state keeps of people who voted against him who are denied government jobs and advancements, and also despite his Stalinist call that "only traitors would vote 'no'" if the official result is 51%/49%, imagine how much the public really hates him. i wonder what the result would be if there was no election fraud and voter intimidation... it's funny - all the westerners i talk to love Hugo. he stands up to Zionist aggression and American hegemony, the new Che, the champion of the proletariat, etc. but every single Venezuelan i talk to hates his guts and wants him dead. go figure...
Foley as usual you have it Bass Aackward, every year less people trust this loud mouth, pompous fool.
Did your Venezuelan friends by chance happen to be rich and middle class ? Yeah, they lost their power base when he came to power.
Well above median for Venezuela. Does anyone have a link to a direct international body comparison between Venezuela's last election and the Ohio voting in '04, or the Florida count in '00 ?
I'm of the opinion that it's a good thing he was stopped on this one. If one cannot trust the Revolution to be organic, it's not time for the Revolution. Especially when the Revolution is being led by the president.
Since when is it "reform" when a constitutional democracy votes for a dictatorship instead? Since when would Hugo not fudge a 51%-49% defeat into a win unless that's as far as he could fudge a landslide defeat and still have wiggle room for the future? The BBC doesn't seem to agree with Venezuelans that their more likely 66%-33% win was the vote for reform. Not surprising.
We didn't have term limits here until after Roosevelt, and Ronald Raygun tried to have them abolished. REAGAN WANTS END OF TWO-TERM LIMIT Mr. Reagan, in a restatement of a past position, said the limitation interfered with the right of the people to ''vote for someone as often as they want to do.''
Term limits were only a small part of the "reforms" that Venezuelans rejected, and were not among the really worrisome aspects. Many shiny happy democracies do not employ term limits; for example, the Prime Minister of the UK faces no legal limits of the length of his tenure. The scary stuff in the "reform" referendum had to do with emergency powers, concentration of powers in the hands of the president, etc. And this is on the heels of the previous nationalizations and constitutional reforms, which has already reduced the legislature to a rubber-stamp body for approving Chavez's policies. That it even came close to passing is a result of all of the various unrelated 'sweeteners' that were added: a shortened work week, expanded unemployment and retirement benefits, formal recognition of certain minority groups, etc. Had Venezuelans been free to vote for each of the proposed reforms individually, I suspect you'd have seen that some were very popular, while most of the power-grab ones would have failed by embarassing (for Chavez, that is) margins.
Why all this debate about the classes of Chavez critics? Even if it's true that the wealthy classes don't like him: so what? Are they no longer Venezuelans, no longer entitled to be represented in a democracy? "But he's helping the poor!" is something of an obtuse response to concerns about what Chavez is doing to democracy in Venezuela, although a highly informative one in these circumstances.
Totally bass-ackwards, Foley! It's a strong indication that the people who once supported the megalomaniac are beginning to turn against him. His popularity will continue to decline since he made this obvious attempt to gain even more power and control over the people. Thinking people, unlike yourself, really aren't fond of that kind of thing.
