Chávez wins decisive reelection in Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stormed to a reelection victory on Dec. 3, handing him an ample mandate to broaden his promised leftist revolution and challenge Washington's influence in Latin America. Dressed in his signature red shirt, Chávez told cheering supporters at his presidential palace on the day of the election that his landslide was a blow to the Bush administration, which portrays the leftist as an anti-democratic menace. "Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger," Chávez roared from a balcony above the crowds using one of the insults he has tossed at the US president. "Everything has been completed, the great victory of the Bolivarian revolution," Chávez said as rain soaked him and close aides on the balcony. "It's another great victory: a victory of love, a victory of peace, a victory of hope. It's a victory for all Venezuela. May Venezuela be victorious always." With the win, Chávez's Bolivarian revolution will last until at least 2013, although Chávez told reporters last week that a change to the constitution could permit him to rule even longer. Observers from the European Union, the Atlanta-based Carter Center and the Organization of American States (OAS) monitored the vote and reported only isolated incidents of electoral irregularities. The OAS, which fielded dozens of election observers, applauded the "massive and peaceful" vote. The National Electoral Council said Chávez won 61 percent of the vote while rival Manuel Rosales, a governor of an oil-producing province who managed to unite the fractured opposition, won 38 percent. Rosales, who for many opposition supporters was a bright hope to beat Chávez, acknowledged defeat but promised to keep fighting. He was greeted by cries of "coward" by some upset supporters as he left his campaign headquarters. Rosales conceded defeat without declaring fraud, as opponents had done in the last major election they lost to Chávez, a recall referendum two years ago. He did, however, say that his campaign believed the electoral council's figures were off and that the final results were tighter. "The truth is that though the margin is closer, we recognize that today we were defeated. But we continue to fight. We will remain in the street," he said. "It's not time to give up." Earlier in the evening, an aide close to Rosales, Julio Montoya, called early voting estimates "false and manipulated," without offering proof. Other officials in the Rosales campaign said voting equipment malfunctioned at several polling sites and that there were delays in pro-Rosales districts. Many opposition supporters believe Chávez has an unfair advantage by controlling key institutions such as the election council. But supporters of the president applaud the man they fondly call "El Comandante" for spending the country's soaring oil wealth on free health and education programs for the poor majority who feel long-abandoned by previous governments. With oil prices having reached historic highs, and Chávez's Fifth Republic Movement in control of the National Assembly and other institutions, the government has funneled billions of dollars into education, health and nutrition programs. Venezuela's economy has been roaring, growing at 18 percent in 2004 and 9.3 percent last year. Although private investment has dwindled and half of Venezuelans work in the black market, the government's spending has put money in banks and in people's pockets. Business sectors dependent upon government contracts are booming, and the stock index on Dec. 1 had its biggest increase in nearly four years on the strength of the belief that Chávez would win. A retired army paratrooper who led a failed military rebellion before his 1998 election, Chávez has consistently fought off opposition groups, some of which received considerable funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US-funded organization that disperses money for "democracy building" but which critics say routinely intervenes in the domestic politics of other countries to the detriment of left-wing or left-leaning candidates. In 2002 Chávez was briefly ousted in a military coup that was tacitly supported by Washington and which resulted in the installation of an interim president, Pedro Carmona. Rosales was among those who signed the so-called Carmona Decree supporting the appointment, though he has since said it was a mistake. The Chávez victory further consolidates the tide of leftist politicians who have won office in Latin America in recent years, including a former labor leader in Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; Michelle Bachelet, a market-friendly socialist in Chile; and Evo Morales, the indigenous president of Bolivia. Although Colombia, Peru and Mexico this year elected pro-trade, pro-US presidents, leftist leaders who criticize market reforms and sharply question the Bush administration's policies in the region were elected last month in Nicaragua and Ecuador.