Venezuela's Chavez Apparently Survives Recall Vote

Chavez Apparently Survives Recall Vote
Mon Aug 16, 9:59 AM ET
By ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez survived a referendum to oust him, according to results Monday, prompting his backers to set off fireworks and celebrate in the capital, while Venezuela's opposition swiftly claimed fraud.

The first-ever recall vote for a president in Venezuela's history was aimed at putting a lid on years of violent political unrest and a bloody coup, and it came after a lengthy and complicated petitioning process.

With 94 percent of the votes counted, Chavez had 58 percent of the vote and the opposition 42 percent, according to Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Elections Council. But Carrasquero stopped short of declaring Chavez the outright winner.

Chavez, the champion of Venezuela's majority poor and the nemesis of the wealthier classes, claimed victory and said he would continue to wage his "revolution for the poor."

"Venezuela has changed forever," he said in a speech. "There is no turning back."

He also claimed repeatedly that opposition leaders were pawns of President Bush.

"Hopefully, from this day on Washington will respect the government and people of Venezuela," Chavez boomed from a palace balcony.

Carrasquero said 4,991,483 votes were cast against recalling the former army paratrooper, and 3,576,517 in favor.

"It is absolutely impossible that the victory of the 'no' be reversed," Chavez told thousands of cheering and whistling backers. "This has been a great victory for the Venezuelan people."

Opposition leaders refused to accept the results and demanded a manual recount, claiming their own exit polls showed almost 60 percent of citizens voted to oust Chavez.

At opposition headquarters in Caracas, opponents watching Carrasquero's announcement on television shouted, "Fraud! Fraud!"

"We categorically and absolutely reject these results," said Henry Ramos Allup, leader of the Democratic Coordinator coalition of opposition parties. "The National Elections Council has committed a gigantic fraud."

Haydee Deutsch, an opposition leader, said the opposition "has no doubt that we won by an overwhelming majority."

Indicating a possible split in the five-member elections council, Sobella Mejia ?- who is aligned with the opposition ?- told a news conference before the tallies were announced that any release of partial figures would be premature and invalid.

News of Chavez's victory drove down crude oil prices from record highs Monday, easing fears of a disruption in supply from the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and normally supplies almost 15 percent of U.S. imports.

September crude futures were trading at $46.45 per barrel Monday morning, down from a record $46.90 earlier in the day in after-hours electronic trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The referendum comes after a two-year drive to oust Chavez that included a short-lived 2002 coup, a devastating two-month strike and political riots in March that claimed a dozen lives.

Venezuelans could either vote "yes" to recall Chavez or "no" to allow him to serve out the remainder of a six-year term that began in 2000.

For Chavez to lose, there had to be more "yes" than "no" votes and more "yes" votes than the nearly 3.8 million votes he received in the 2000 presidential elections.

With more than 8.5 million votes cast, Sunday's referendum shattered the previous record of voter turnout, when 7.5 million Venezuelans cast ballots in the 1988 presidential elections.

Former President Carter, who monitored the vote, said it was the largest turnout he had ever seen, and lines extended for more than a mile in some places.

There was no immediate reaction from Carter or Cesar Gaviria, head of the Organization of American States, on the results.

The OAS independently collects a sampling of results in elections it monitors, but it does not release them when they coincide with results announced by local election authorities. The organization withheld its own results Monday, indicating they coincided at least loosely with the official tally.

Activists from both sides urged voters to the polls, but they needed little pushing. Venezuelans tend to love or hate Chavez, 50, with sentiment drawn along class lines.

Chavez is a champion among the majority poor for freely spending on social programs with Venezuela's oil revenues. But his vilification of the rich and close ties with Cuban leader Fidel Castro (news - web sites) made him many enemies among the wealthy.

The sheer number of voters, coupled with problems with electronic thumbprint ID machines, led election officials to twice postpone the polls' closing to midnight ?- eight hours later than originally scheduled. They then said the polling stations would be kept open until everyone in line voted.
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Associated Press reporters Christopher Toothaker and Alexandra Olson in Caracas contributed to this report.