Chavez loses constitutional vote
Yahoo
By: Ian James
12/03/2007

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely, the chief of National Electoral Council said Monday.

Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, Tibisay Lucena said. Turnout was just 56 percent, Lucena said.

Chavez called it a "photo finish" immediately after the results were announced.

The referendum on constitutional changes was a critical test for a leader bent on turning this major U.S. oil provider into a socialist state. An emboldened opposition and clashes during student-led protests in recent weeks had prompted fears of bitter conflict in Chavez's closest race in years.

Source

Good...  the people of Venezuela aren't asleep at the wheel afterall.

Sounds like Hugo oughta hire Karl Rove.  He can help.  49%? You're in like Flynn with Uncle Karl!
:D

The play has been challenged and is under review

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1314/1430280243_48529925cd.jpg?v=0

I would not be surprised if those that voted against recieve a knock on their door late at night

The play has been challenged and is under review

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1314/1430280243_48529925cd.jpg?v=0

I would not be surprised if those that voted against recieve a knock on their door late at night


Neither would I, any time you have a power hungry commie like Chavez you have to watch your back.

^ If Chavez is power hungry, he's in good company in the Western Hemisphere.
::)

All this means is Chavez doesn't get to be president for life, which is a good thing.  Lifetime executive power leads inevitably to dictatorship, corruption, cult of personality, and national instability upon the death of the lifetime leader.  Chavez will have to be accountable to the Venezuelan people in 2012.  If the majority doesn't like him, he's out.  Of course Chavez can stage a coup so long as the military backs him, or the opposition might whack him.  I hope neither happens. 

So much for Hugo wanting to be another Castro. ::)

So much for Hugo wanting to be another Castro. ::)


Castro is a good example.  They're trying to hand the reins to his brother when he dies like it was a monarchy.  I would not be surprised if there was great instability in Cuba after Castro's death.  As I was saying about presidency-for-life is it ultimately leads to instability. 

Castro is a good example.  They're trying to hand the reins to his brother when he dies like it was a monarchy.  I would not be surprised if there was great instability in Cuba after Castro's death.  As I was saying about presidency-for-life is it ultimately leads to instability. 


Raul doesn't have what it takes to run a country.  Instability, try more like chaos.

Chavez called it a "photo finish" immediately after the results were announced.


(Insert Motivational Poster Here)

LOSING YOUR GRIP: When you can't even get Jimmah Cahtah to endorse your attempt to become a communist dictator.

Chavez still has 5 years to grab for more power, but he must have lost by a huge margin if even his vote-fixing and thuggery couldn't keep enough of the opposition away to guarantee his victory. 

Neither would I, any time you have a power hungry commie like Chavez you have to watch your back.


Your knowledge, Davey, of Hugo Chavez' political and economic philosophy is, obviously, severely limited.  "Power hungry commie"...indeed!  President Chavez is a socialist with some "capitalist"  tendencies.  He is constantly being criticized by purist Socialists, like the World Socialist Web Site, for being too lenient in handling the big corporations who are constantly trying to inflict their greedy influences in Latin America.  If you bothered to read any of the in-depth commentaries I posted about Chavez and his guiding principles of government, you wouldn't come out with your ridiculous accusations.  (Or are you just too much of a right-wing conservative to look objectively at a political leader like Hugo Chavez?) >:(
Sometimes you sound just like George W Bush...and I know you're smarter than that lummox.
peace...Lee 

^ I tend to favor Chavez, but I'm always suspicious of political power.  Whenever a country grants canine loyalty to any leader as the great father, the great savior, it always comes to grief.  The price of liberty is eternal vigilence.  The Republicans would have us believe that means eternal vigilence of Democrats and terrorists who are one in the same.  I say it means eternal vigilence of anybody in charge, whether it's George Bush, Hillary Clinton, or Hugo Chavez. 

All the ignorant pseudo-democrats (note the small "d") who oppose Hugo Chavez clearly have no conception of what is contained in the agenda of this  man.  Did anyone read the items contained in the proposed reforms?  The proposals, when they are incorporated into the Venezuelan constitution, (and they will be within a few years), will make it more democratic than the U.S. Constitution. http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/06/luxhello.gif http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/06/luxhello.gif

Hasta la victoria, siempre!

The Venezuelan Referendum
December 4th 2007, by Clifton Ross - Dissident Voice

    The inexperienced soldier thinks everything lost when he is once defeated because he hasn’t yet learned from experience that courage, ability and perseverance correct bad luck.

    – Simon Bolívar, Cartagena Manifesto

With the defeat of the Constitutional reforms at the polls on December 2, the Bolivarian Revolution has undeniably lost a battle in its long struggle to create a more just and humane society, but it has also proven that democracy is alive and well in Venezuela. Chavez’s upbeat and ready acceptance of the results and his congratulations toward those who had waged an undeniably dirty campaign against the reforms, earned him an unexpected compliment from CNN commentators who referred to his “magnanimous” acceptance of the results. More to the point, despite outright lies and fabrications of the capitalist mass media in Venezuela and internationally, psyops brewed in the labs of the CIA and U.S. State Department, Chavez has managed to maintain and protect a pluralistic democracy, in itself a refutation of the “democratic” pretensions as well as the charges made by the opposition that he’s a dictator and there is no freedom or democracy in Venezuela.

Indeed, the lies and black propaganda reached absurd levels, with some ads proclaiming that the reform would “take children away from their parents” and expropriate homes from their rightful owners. (The reform, in fact, would have guaranteed precisely the opposite, making it more difficult for people to lose their homes in case of bankruptcy.) However, the most universal mischaracterization of the reforms was the constantly repeated lie that they would “make Chavez president-for-life.” Once again, in the US and Venezuelan opposition press, we were led to believe, falsely, of course, that this reform was all about Chavez and not the Venezuelan people. This fiction was repeated so often and so forcefully that the other 69 articles of reform in the two slates proposed, one by Chavez himself, and one by the National Assembly, got little or no coverage. Those much-neglected articles included guaranteeing social security for workers in the informal economy; lowering the voting age from 18 to 16; lowering the work week from 44 to 36 hours; prohibiting discrimination based on disability or sexual preference and requiring gender parity in political parties; giving five percent of tax revenues disbursed to the states directly to the community councils; guaranteeing free education to all Venezuelans through the university (yes, that would include PhD’s), and making organic agriculture the “strategic basis of integral rural development.” Because the media reduced the entire Reform to this one issue, they presented the defeat of the Reforms as a “defeat for Chavez” rather than a temporary setback for greater democracy, social justice and the struggle of the working people and middle class of Venezuela who stood to gain from the reform. After all, Chavez still has five years left in office, a National Assembly and, according to polls, a majority of the people on his side.

Even the President of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, acknowledged that the media was weighted against Chavez and the reforms when she pointed out that, in the month of November, the media dedicated 59 percent of its coverage to the opposition and 41 percent to supporters of the Reforms. This fact has led intellectuals like Jose Sant Roz, Professor of the University of the Andes and author of over 20 books on Venezuelan politics, to call for the creation of a national revolutionary daily since the only pro-government daily paper, Diario Vea, is of relatively small size and circulation compared to the half-dozen or so newspapers of the opposition.

The defeat of the Reforms has raised other issues and prompted much critical internal reflection already among Chavistas. The commentaries flood in by the hour at www.aporrea.org, and reveal the insight and profound reevaluation that the referendum has induced.

First, some have criticized the management and organization of the referendum on the reforms, asking why the Electoral Battalion Units (UBEs) that were so successful in the 2004 referendum on the Presidency of Chavez had been disbanded after that political moment and not, rather, extended, empowered and built upon.

Others, like Venezuelan writer and analyst at Vheadline.com, Franco Munini, have argued that “we put all our eggs in one basket” with all 69 articles in two slates rather than having the option available to vote article by article. It’s likely, contrary to the views expressed in the opposition/imperial press, that term limits on the presidency would have been eliminated, and some of the other popular measures would also have passed if such an approach to the vote on the Reforms had been allowed.

There have also been criticisms within the Bolivarian movement that not enough has been done to push the social agenda forward. Dr. Steve Ellner of the Universidad de Oriente of Venezuela writes today that there had been “the lack of sufficient attention to concrete, tangible problems and an overemphasis on lofty ideals. I’m referring to issues that range from garbage collection and shortages of staples to corruption.” Related to this has been a common criticism that not enough has been done to weed out corruption, especially within the Chavez movement and the government itself.

In the end, the defeat was ambiguous as a “defeat.” While it appears that it might slow down Chavez’ momentum (unlikely), it may have only reflected a slowdown on the part of the activists at the base, given the very low turnout. Last year 70 percent of the voters turned out with a majority voting to re-elect Chavez. By contrast, only 56 percent turned out yesterday for the referendum. This is certainly one of the most distressing aspects of the December 2nd referendum on the Constitution: that a revolution priding itself on its pilgrimage from “bourgeois representative democracy to participatory, protagonistic democracy” seems to be backsliding. This fact should motivate activists in the party to think carefully about what they will need to do in the future to push forward and reactivate the enthusiasm and commitment that has brought Venezuela so far so quickly and it appears that Chavez is already considering this to be the crucial lesson here. This referendum, moreover, may have the effect of finally convincing some in the opposition that the Bolivarian Process is what it always claimed to be: Democratic and liberatory. As Venezuelan political analyst Franco Munini sees it, “(Bolivarians) won in the end because the opposition said, in voting down the reforms, that it didn’t want any changes to the constitution that we wrote in 1999. Which is to say they’re finally coming around to where we were seven years ago.”

Clifton Ross represented the U.S. in Venezuela's World Poetry Festival in 2005. From 2005-2006 he reported from Mérida, Venezuela. His movie, Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out is now available from www.freedomvoices.org and www.progressivefilms.org. He is the co-editor of Voice of Fire: Communiques and Interviews of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (1994, New Earth Publications) and his book, Fables for an Open Field (1994, Trombone Press, New Earth Publications), has just been released in Spanish by La Casa Tomada of Venezuela. His forthcoming book of poems in translation, Traduciendo el Silencio, will be published later this year by Venezuela’s Ministry of Culture editorial, Perro y Rana. Ross teaches English at Berkeley City College, Berkeley, California. He can be reached at: clifross1@yahoo.com. Read other articles by Clifton.
Source URL: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/1247/
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Printed: December 6th 2007

"The people that did not vote or voted against the reform, because they were annoyed or discontent, voted against themselves."
Presidente Hugo Chavez



Chavez: Venezuelan People Can Present New Reform Proposal
December 5th 2007, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, December 5, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - The Venezuelan people have the capacity to modify and newly present the constitutional reform proposal defeated in the referendum on December 2, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday, during a telephone call to the popular political commentary program La Hojilla (the Razorblade) on the Venezuelan state TV channel VTV.

During his phone call, Chavez reflected on the referendum results and affirmed that he had lost the right to introduce a constitutional reform proposal. However, he said, "the Venezuelan people have the power and the right to present a request for constitutional reform before this term finishes, of which there is still five years."

Under the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, the President, the National Assembly or 15 percent of registered voters have the right to present a proposal for constitutional reform.

The Venezuelan people, Chavez emphasized, could present another reform proposal "next year or in three years."

"It doesn't have to be exactly the same," he continued, "It can be in the same direction, but in a different form, improved and simplified, because I have to accept that the reform that we presented was very complex. And in the debate it became more complex. This was utilized by our adversaries and we lacked the capacity to explain it."

Chavez's original constitutional reform proposal on August 15 contained changes to 33 articles; this was then increased to a total of 69 articles during the debate in the National Assembly.

During his concession speech in the early hours of Monday morning Chavez conceded that perhaps the timing of the reform proposal was wrong. However, pointing to the extremely narrow margin of the opposition victory, he declared on La Hojilla, "Despite it being an early offensive, we nearly won!"

"We will consolidate this strength and increase this strength and then there will come a new offensive, that can achieve it through popular means," he assured.

Chavez said he hoped the people would take up this initiative, while maintaining the principle objective; "the transformation of the state."

"The discussion around the transformation of the state is not over," he continued, "this is the moment to begin a true reflection and self-criticism."

While the opposition increased their vote only slightly from 4.4 million in the presidential elections last year to 4.5 million against the reforms, it appears that up to 2.8 million people that voted for Chavez in the presidential elections abstained in the constitutional reform referendum.

Reflecting on the suggestion that many people may have abstained from voting in the referendum in protest over the performance of many regional majors and governorships aligned with ‘Chavismo,' Chavez said, "If some people did not vote because they were annoyed by the lack of a response to some of their demands by some entity, then this is not a thing to flagellate ourselves over, because the proposal attacked directly the vices in the said bodies, such as corruption and bureaucracy that have precisely held back the demands of the people. cc

Chavez also ridiculed the international media campaign to discredit and personally attack him, particularly U.S. television channel CNN that has begun to spread information about a supposed crisis in the revolutionary government in reaction to the results of the electoral process on December 2.

Assuring that he was continuing to work hard for the revolution, Chavez said, "For me this is not a defeat and I don't consider that this is a victory of the opposition. Here what exists is the maintenance of an opening towards a path for a new homeland. What they leave out of their invented accounts of crisis and of people easily defeated and sad, is that Chavez is still here for a while."

He also completely denied the versions of El Nacional journalist Hernán Lugo-Galicia, who alleged in an interview with Daniel Viotto on CNN in Spanish that Chavez had only accepted the results of the referendum because of pressure from the Military High Command.

"Of these rumors that the Military High Command was ready to continue with plans of destabilization that the opposition had ready; there is one thing to make clear, that the current Military High Command is more solid than ever because of the Revolution, because of their commitment, because of their respect for the Constitution."

General Jesús Gregorio González González, chief of the Strategic Operational Command also phoned in to La Hojilla minutes later to confirm that the claims by Lugo-Galicia are "made up stories."
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Printed: December 6th 2007
License: Published under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd). See creativecommons.org for more information.