Word: ch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has given his rubber-stamp National Assembly the green light to fashion yet another constitutional referendum on whether presidential term limits should be eliminated in the western hemisphere's largest oil producer. "We're going to achieve it," the left-wing Chávez declared to thousands of supporters in Caracas on Sunday. "We're going to demonstrate who rules in Venezuela. If God gives me life and health, I will be with you until 2021" - the bicentennial of Venezuela's independence from Spain. "Uh-ah, Chávez no se va," he sang...
...incoming Obama Administration - and who knows how many U.S. Administrations after Obama's - may need to prepare for lifetime re-election for Chávez, because this time he could very well get it. And no matter how passionately the anti-U.S. firebrand keeps working to thwart Washington's interests in the hemisphere, there is very little Washington can do about it, since the U.S. gets almost 15% of its oil imports from Venezuela...
...Chávez most recently tried to nix term limits in a constitutional plebiscite last year, but in a stunning rebuke, Venezuelans voted down the idea. Few, however, really believed the radical Chávez, whose second and final six-year term ends in February 2013, would let the matter die there. Most assumed he would wait for the outcome of last week's regional elections. He was hoping his United Socialist Party (PSUV) would crush Venezuela's dysfunctional opposition so badly that he'd meet little resistance raising the term-limits question again...
That wasn't quite the result Chávez got. The PSUV did win 17 of 22 state governorships, the lion's share of mayoral posts and 53% of the total vote, proving that Chávez and his Bolivarian Revolution are still the nation's most potent political force. But el comandante's celebration was blunted by the fact that the opposition won governor seats in three of the most populous states, including Zulia, the nation's oil powerhouse, and Carabobo, an important automobile producer. (Earlier last month, Chávez had threatened to send in tanks...
...Sunday, Chávez called the opposition victors "fascists" and made it clear he wasn't deterred by his mixed victory. In fact, say many analysts, the opposition's successes probably made him more determined to have Venezuelan voters revisit the term-limits issue as soon as possible. The price of oil, the fount of his revolutionary largesse, is in steep decline; inflation is topping 30%; and Chávez will have a harder time whipping up anti-yanqui< fervor among his supporters now that the more liberal Barack Obama is about to replace Chávez's conservative archenemy...