Word: chavezes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Meanwhile, across town in wealthier Altamira, Chavez opponents who had seemingly forgotten how to rejoice clogged streets, set off fireworks and exchanged embraces. As the mostly student crowd chanted and played drums outside the opposition campaign headquarters, newspaper editor and former presidential candidate Teodoro Petkoff flashed a wide smile. "Last week it was evident there was a transfer of people who usually vote for Chavez, and they defeated it," he said...
...Petare said they opted for "Yes." But there were clearly naysayers. "The majority here will vote no," 51-year-old Maria Negrin said after voting in Petare on Sunday morning. "I don't agree with giving all the power to the President." Others said they wanted to vote against Chavez's proposal, but felt obligated to vote yes because they benefited from government social programs...
...constitutional overhaul said they were more troubled about measures to abolish presidential term limits and facilitate state expropriation of private property than they were enthused by articles that could benefit the poor, such as social security for informal workers and popular participation in government. That begs the question: did Chavez sacrifice measures that could have helped the poor because he insisted on a political power grab...
...Arlenis Espinal is a university professor at Simon Rodriguez University and a community leader in the lower-class Caracas neighborhood of 23 de Enero, traditionally a bastion of Chavez support where the President himself votes during elections. Espinal, who has been fighting for social change since the 1970s, at times amid police repression, says more people in her area abstained or voted against the President than in last year's election...
...Both Chavez supporters and opponents said in interviews before the vote that they didn't believe the no vote had a chance. Despite that atmosphere, and a persistent opposition conviction that the results could be fraudulent, the nascent student movement helped galvanize many detractors to vote. When students took to the streets to protest the forced shutdown of the opposition-aligned television station Radio Caracas Television earlier this year, the country had all but forgotten that the universities were one of the very few sectors of society left that was not yet controlled by the government. On that occasion, young...