Chavez reels from vote defeat
CARACAS (AFP) — A humbled President Hugo Chavez was left reeling Monday after Venezuelan voters rejected a raft of constitutional reforms that would have allowed him to seek re-election indefinitely.
His defeat in a referendum Sunday was a political earthquake in Venezuela, an unprecedented blow to Chavez's hopes of turning his oil-rich OPEC country into a lynchpin of Latin American socialism.
"Now, Venezuelans, let's put our trust in our institutions," the 53-year-old leftist president said after reluctantly accepting results that showed his changes were rejected 51 percent to 49 -- the narrowest of margins.
"Don't feel sad," he told his supporters somberly, with little of the bluster that characterized his campaign, adding that he recognized his plans had been thwarted -- "for now."
Overnight, the capital's center was taken over by young "no" voters who partied into the early hours, music blaring from cars and the national flag being waved with excitement. Fireworks exploded in the sky.
"We've been waiting for this for a long time -- it's the beginning of the end for Chavez, we've shown we can beat him," said Edwin Sanchez, 27, one of many university students who had spearheaded street protests against the reforms.
"The people were fed up with his perpetual paranoia," said Anna Camelo, a 30-year-old shopworker also celebrating. "He wanted to impose a dictatorship on us and cut us off from all the other countries."
By day, the streets of Caracas were calm with the post-poll hangover. Posters calling for a "yes" result were scraped or bundled up in the trash. Chavez sympathizers looked morose and tired as they strolled along or sat in cafes.
Chavez had staked his formidable charisma and high personal popularity among voters on the referendum, telling them it had to be passed so he could see through his vision of making Venezuela a socialist economy, free from US "imperialism."
He wanted to use it to take over the central bank, gag the media in emergencies and expropriate property in the name of his socialist vision.
He also wanted to vie for re-election and stay in power "until 2050," when he would be 95, through the reform's scrapping of presidential term limits.
But, under the extant constitution, he will now have to step down at the end of his second mandate, in January 2013.
The United States welcomed the defeat of a leader who has long irritated it with his ties to Iran and Cuba and virulent anti-US rhetoric.
"Clearly this is a message from the Venezuelan people that they do not want any further erosion in their democracy and their democratic institutions," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The European Commission said it was "satisfied" with Chavez's admission of defeat, while Spain -- whose King Juan Carlos last month told Chavez to "shut up" during a summit -- congratulated the Venezuelan people for their "democratic maturity."
Though Chavez called for calm in the wake of the loss, he faced a challenge in soothing tensions he himself had whipped up at the height of his campaign.
As recently as last week he was calling all those who opposed his reforms "traitors," and suggested they were working towards a US plan to topple him. A vote against him, he said, was a vote for US President George W. Bush.
Now, it has become clear those "traitors" included former allies, such as ex-defense minister Raul Baduel, Venezuela's Catholic Church, and a large segment of the country's poor majority who previously had been fiercely pro-Chavez.
It also appeared unlikely Chavez would follow through on his threat to cut oil exports to the United States if he saw what he perceived to be Washington meddling in the result. Venezuela's economy is dependent on the estimated 1.2 million barrels of oil per day it sends to its capitalist northern neighbor.
A historian, Margarita Lopez Maya, told AFP that the result was "a personal rout for the president" but overall good for the country.
"Chavez will survive, but will be forced to rethink the timing of his project and the ways he might be able to persuade the population," she said.
Venezuela's constitution prevents Chavez from re-presenting his constitutional reform under the current congress -- though he could conceivably appoint a constituent assembly to draft an entirely new basic law for adoption.
Baduel, who has emerged as a rallying figure for the previously fractured opposition, urged supporters to remain vigilant in months ahead.
"We need to remain conscious of the possibility that the president could attempt to reach the same results through the legislative process," he said.
