Chavez in landslide
Chavez heads for a landslide win in Venezuela By Saul Hudson 40 minutes ago
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Anti-U.S. Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez claimed victory with a cry of “long live the revolution” as
official results showed him heading for a landslide re-election win
on Sunday.
Chavez won 61 percent, while Manuel Rosales, a governor of an oil-
producing province who united the opposition, trailed with 38 percent
after 78 percent of the vote had been counted, the National Electoral
Council said.
If the trend continues, Chavez, 52, will have a strong mandate in his
next six-year term to press his self-styled socialist revolution and
forge an anti-U.S. front in Latin America to counter what he calls
the superpower’s “imperialism.”
Chavez, dressed in his signature red shirt, raised his right fist in
the air and sang the national anthem on a balcony at the presidential
palace.
“It’s a great victory for the revolution,” he told hundreds of
supporters who chanted “Chavez isn’t leaving.”
He swept to election victories in 1998 and 2000. Another win with a
strong majority would give the Cuba ally a clear mandate to scrap
presidential term limits and create a single-party that he expects to
lead in power for decades.
He also aims to take further state control of the Caribbean country’s
top industry — oil.
A folksy politician who calls President Bush the devil, Chavez is
popular among Venezuela’s majority poor because of his free spending
of the OPEC country’s oil bonanza on clinics and schools.
Rosales, 53 and a father of 10, draws his main support from the
middle and upper classes in the polarized nation.
While he lacks Chavez’s charisma, he ran a disciplined campaign that
exposed Venezuelans’ anger at rampant crime and their fears that
Chavez wants to drive the country toward Cuba-style communism.
“INTO THE STREETS”
At Rosales’s campaign headquarters, angry supporters chanted “into
the streets, into the streets” in a sign that some in the opposition
could protest the results.
But hundreds of backers of Chavez, whose campaign slogan was “red,
really red” to reflect his socialist credentials, descended on an
upmarket Caracas neighborhood that has been a political battleground
and danced salsa.
“Rosales’ butt ended up ‘red, really red’ after the whipping we gave
him,” said Iraida Martinez, a 39-year-old nurse.
Chavez, in power since 1999, has accused Rosales of planning to cry
fraud if he loses and predicted he will try to create a political
crisis to topple him. Rosales denies the charge and says he will
accept the result if the election is fair.
Teodoro Petkoff, one of the most respected figures in the opposition,
said the voting was carried out in a “satisfactory” manner and when
irregularities emerged they were generally addressed by the electoral
authorities.
The Organization of American States, which fielded dozens of election
observers, applauded the “massive and peaceful” vote.
Chavez would be the fourth leftist to win an election in Latin
America in the last five weeks.
Backed by hard-line allies in Cuba and Bolivia, Chavez has bolstered
ties with more moderate leftists in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and
Nicaragua to form an anti-U.S. front.
While the United States is Venezuela’s top oil customer, Chavez has
battled the superpower over everything from trade to OPEC to Iran’s
nuclear goals since he took office in 1999.