Word: venezuela
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...panic set in on Sunday evening when news started to trickle out of Venezuela's National Election Commission, which is dominated by allies of President Hugo Chávez. Referendum returns indicated that Chávez's package of constitutional changes, including the elimination of presidential-term limits, would narrowly lose. Inside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Chávez--who had yet to lose an election since winning the presidency in 1998--was initially furious. But soon enough, he accepted the loss. And his calm concession did Venezuela--in fact, a whole continent whose leaders have had a habit of defying...
...panic set in around 7 p.m. Sunday evening, when the news arrived from inside Venezuela's National Election Commission (CNE), which is dominated by allies of President Hugo Chávez. Referendum returns indicated that Chávez's constitutional reforms, including the elimination of presidential term limits, would narrowly lose. Inside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Chávez - who had yet to lose an election since winning the presidency in 1998 - was visibly upset. Still, according to government sources, he soon checked his anger and insisted the tally would turn his way before the CNE announced the results...
Chávez's calm concession did Venezuela, as well as democracy-challenged Latin America, a valuable service. And, whether he believes it or not, Venezuela did Chávez a favor as well by rebuffing the constitutional amendments that sought to expand and extend his already ample political power. The referendum loss should prod him to focus on the Venezuelan problems that need to be fixed before he leaves office in 2013, instead of the globe-trotting socialist and anti-U.S. crusades he hoped to pursue as President "until 2050," as he remarked last month. If so, he stands...
...would be ill-advised for Chávez to try to revive the idea of nixing presidential term limits, as he hinted this week he may do. (The Venezuela vote may also give other Latin American countries - especially Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador - second thoughts about giving their own Presidents more if not unlimited terms.) Unlimited reelection was arguably the proposal that repelled voters most, and to ignore that reality would only invite trouble. Instead, says Bart Jones, author of a new Chávez biography, !Hugo!, it's time for Chávez and chavistas "to stop thinking about the Bolivarian Revolution...
...aren't discredited by the political polarization and economic uncertainty that got him stung on Sunday. Most of the student protesters interviewed by TIME this week, for example, express support for Chávez's basic agenda: "There's no doubt he brought necessary changes to a very corrupt Venezuela," says Mejia. And the leftward, less U.S.-dependent turn he engineered in Latin American politics has ironically made the a more market-oriented model he professes to disdain more viable in countries like Brazil by making it more egalitarian. Sunday's humbling results will make Chávez a less swaggering figure...