Word: referendums
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...Caracas CHAVEZ WITHOUT LIMITS Venezuelan voters passed a referendum to remove presidential term limits, allowing President Hugo Chávez to seek re-election indefinitely. The constitutional amendment, supported by 54% of voters (including these Chávez supporters, above), comes more than a year after the leftist leader's first attempt was shot down. Chávez says the measure was necessary to continue his socialist reforms; critics say it has brought the country closer to dictatorship...
...this election, Chávez has used the entire government apparatus to promote the referendum. Pro-Chávez propaganda adorned government vehicles and public buildings, while state radio and television channels promoted the referendum night and day. Passengers on the subway in the capital had to listen to campaign jingles during their commute...
...summit in Chile brought the king of Spain, a normally soft-spoken man, to shout, “Why don’t you shut up?†Yet Chávez will not be shutting up any time soon. On Monday, Venezuela passed a national referendum that removed term limits for public officials, allowing Chávez and his appointees to potentially remain in power for life...
...issue at stake is not term limits in a general sense, but the mechanism by which they were removed. It is theoretically possible to democratically eliminate term limits with a fair election; however, it would be naive to call Venezuela’s recent referendum on term limits a fair election. Though the domestic opposition has not challenged the election results, Chávez has gained such a firm grip on the media during his decade in office that he can readily warp the democratic process to suit his ambition...
...like Castro, looks set to remain in power for a long time. But unlike Castro, he's likely to do so on the basis of a democratic mandate, as his decisive win in Sunday's referendum suggested. Many poor Venezuelans see his Bolivarian revolution, despite its polarizing effects on the country, as a safeguard against the looming economic pain of falling oil prices. Analysts like John Walsh, a senior associate at the independent Washington Office on Latin America, may worry that indefinite re-election would allow Chávez to accumulate excessive power, but Walsh credits Chávez with...