Word: chavez
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...official: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez will be in office longer than his arch-nemesis, President George W. Bush. Following his reelection to a new six-year term by a wide margin on Sunday, Chavez promised a "new era in the national Bolivarian project," his program to use Venezuela's oil wealth to fund social programs as well as to bolster a regional united front against U.S. influence. Now, the scale of his victory - the National Electoral Council gave him a 23% lead over contender Manuel Rosales with over three-quarters of votes counted - will be claimed as a mandate...
...Still, this is hardly the first time Chavez has boisterously threatened further radicalization of his revolution, and Venezuela is still far from the Latin American Marxist nightmare that Washington fears it will become. Chavez has certainly cracked down on foreign oil companies and expropriated private property, but he still presides over a far-from-socialist society that loves its Scotch whisky and shopping malls...
...Despite government assurances that elections will be clean, the opposition is still suspicious of electoral manipulation. Echoing U.S. claims that Chavez is turning authoritarian, his domestic opponents argue that a President who has eliminated most checks and balances to his power might not tolerate an unfavorable election result. The electoral council is tilted towards Chavez allies, while the government has pressured state employees to support the President and has used state television to promote him. But the only director on the council sympathetic to the opposition assures that voting will be secret and that any fraud can easily be detected...
...Meanwhile, Chavez continues to campaign as much as against Washington as against Rosales. Banners around Caracas exhort voters to "Vote against the devil, vote against the empire." For his part, Rosales says he wants to restore respectful relations with the U.S., since it is the biggest customer of Venezuela's oil industry. Posters calling on Venezuelans to reject the U.S. government adorn the walls of a local meeting space set up near Tagagua for participants in the "Mothers of the Barrio" program. But Yamileth Zambrano, who helps manage that space, doesn't mention foreign policy when asked why she likes...
...Venezuelans," she says. And that belief, widespread as it is in the barrios, ought to ensure Chavez a comfortable victory on Sunday...