NO!
Posted on 12/02/2007 9:37:41 PM PST by james500
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lost a tight vote on Sunday in a referendum on giving him new powers and scrapping term limits on his left-wing rule.
The national electoral authority said early on Monday the "No" camp won 51 percent of the vote compared to the pro-Chavez "Yes" camp's 49 percent.
It said the trend could not be reserved and declared Chavez the loser.
The referendum vote on a raft of reforms would have allowed Chavez to run for reelection indefinitely, control Venezuela's foreign currency reserves, appoint loyalists over regional elected officials and censor the media if he declares an emergency.
Chavez has said he wants to rule for life and turn Venezuela into a socialist state. But defeat will likely put the Cuba ally under intense pressure to slow or halt his self-declared socialist revolution and step down when his term ends in 2013.
Chavez called the referendum vote "a photo finish".
(Additional reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero, Patricia Rondon and Jorge Silva, Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Kieran Murray)
Somehow, I don’t think this is the end of the reform fight in Venz...
Kind of a hollow victory when he has six years to come up with more of these kinds of stunts to try to extend his rule.
I won’t believe the results until verified by Saint Jimmah Carter.
I wonder if Chavez brought in Bill Daley to help him cheat, the way algore did in 2000?
If you can’t even successfully manipulate an election, how good a socialist dictator can you really be? Doesn’t he flunk some major authoritarian test here?
They don’t make dictators like they used to.
POR QUE NO TE CALLAS?
I’m speechless. I hope it holds, WOW!
If Chavez doesn’t overturn this Castro may intervene. Commies ain’t gonna roll over so quickly.
How long before he demands a recount?
Hugo will say, “George Bush’s Fault” and call another election or just say he won and that is that.
Like W, Kennedy et al felt after the immigration amnesty pos bill tanked. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!!
He needs removing soon.
Does this mean Hillary will have to change her plans so as not to allow the great unwashed to vote on such a power grab if she is elected?
This may be the signal the military has been waiting for to get rid of this bum.
I believe you are right...to HUGE to CHEAT...bet he doesn’t last till 2013...HOORAY FOR THE VZ PEOPLE!!!!
thank God for Diebold and Rove
And he is standing in front of a portrait of Simon Bolivar giving this endless speech. He keeps saying, “por ahora, por ahora,” for now, for now, which strikes me as sinister, to say the least. Now he just said the revolutionary government is here. “We know how to convert seeming defeat into moral victories.”
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