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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chavez eyes support for re-election |
| 2008-12-23 |
| Venezuela's president says half of the country's voters will back his bid to run for re-election while penciling in Feb. 15 as referendum date. Venezuela's constitution has already been changed once after Chavez came to power in 1998, to allow him to run for just one re-election. He won a new mandate in 2006. Now Chavez, whose present term ends in 2012, wants to change the wording of the Constitution from "the president may be re-elected only once" to simply "the president may be re-elected." "Two years ago (in the last presidential elections), 7.3 million voters voted for me. I don't expect any less than that. We are going towards 10 million (votes)," Hugo Chavez claimed in his weekly television broadcast on Sunday, according to AFP. Chavez said, "The referendum could be in February ... a date of February 15. It is already actually being evaluated technically (as a date)." But Chavez narrowly lost a referendum that included the same change last year and risks weakening his presidency if he is defeated again. The opposition calls Chavez a dictator-in-the-making, but the Cuba ally and declared Bush administration enemy says he needs the constitution changed to be able to stand for office again in 2012 and to deepen his socialist reforms. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Heh. This sounds like the EU to the Irish. Keep voting till you get it right. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-12-23 09:57 |
| #6 Hire Al Franken as a consultant. He might work pro bono for Yougo. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-12-23 08:09 |
| #5 He needs help to get reelected? What kind of tin horned, Marxists dictator is he? Not much, apparently. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-12-23 08:04 |
| #4 Assuming there is one that is in fact open. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-23 08:00 |
| #3 Hugo has cut the foreign exchange allowance for travellers and internet purchases. He's completely written off the middle-class in the next election. |
| Posted by: .5MT 2008-12-23 07:20 |
| #2 Yeah, 12 cents or 12 billion dollars. Pat Robertson. Chavez, America is not your problem. God is. |
| Posted by: newc 2008-12-23 03:03 |
| #1 Hugo MUST be president for life, because hardcore Marxists are so hard to find in Latin America. |
| Posted by: Vanc 2008-12-23 01:33 |