Carter: Venez Election "More Satisfactory than Florida"

Chavez predicts win in Venezuela referendum

BY REED LINDSAY IN CARACAS

THE ‘Chavistas’ were out in force yesterday as oil-rich Venezuela prepared for a vote that will determine the future of its charismatic president.

Hugo Chavez was elected to office five years ago on a wave of populist sentiment that hoped he would use the liquid gold that has made the South American state the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter to liberate the population from poverty.

An army of supporters - the red-shirted ‘Chavistas’ - who believe the left-wing president with his fiery rhetoric is some way towards delivering his promises have now mobilised to ensure that Chavez returns to office after a referendum called by the opposition...

As the clock ticked towards today’s plebiscite, both Chavez’s administration and the opposition are predicting victory.

"At this point, our victory is inevitable," Chavez told an election rally last week. "Nothing and nobody can avoid it."

The opposition parties appear equally confident. When hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of eastern Caracas in a massive opposition march, the leading opposition figure and state governor Enrique Mendoza promised the crowd "an avalanche of votes" that would guarantee Chavez’s ousting.

But recent polls have Chavez winning by a clear margin - a striking change from a year ago, when his approval rating was as low as 30%.

Since winning office with 56% of the vote in 1998, Chavez has led an ambitious overhaul of Venezuela’s political system. He has helped create a new constitution considered one of the most progressive in the world, attempted to revamp the notoriously corrupt state oil company, undergone an ambitious land reform programme and launched a gamut of social programs directed at the poor...

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