Venezuela, and a vote over "No Confidence"

Chavez the Venezualan president is a populist president promoting reforms such as better health care and education for the poor out of the country's oil revenues.

He is bitterly opposed by the nations aristocracy and the US. From the article:

"In April 2002, the United States stunned the world by immediately recognizing an illegal government installed after a military coup ousted the constitutionally elected president, Hugo Chavez."

and

"Anti-Chavistas point to corruption, crime and economic crisis to justify their opposition, but crime and corruption are hardly new to Venezuela. And a good part of Venezuela's economic decline, which has been turned around in the last year, can be attributed to the three-month-long strike led by oppositionists. These are the same people who supported the April 2002 coup and who publicly declared their desire to topple the government by crippling the economy.

Labeling Chavez a monkey plays the race card, hinting that Chavez (who is part Indian and part black) is distinct from the lily-white Venezuelan elites."

It's a very interesting situation and the result has been announced. Chavez winning 58% to 42% - that is 58% voting "No" to a recall of the government and an immediate vote without Chavez finishing the remaining two years of his term. As Chavez said in his acceptance "there's still 40% of the country who voted against me and they are Venezualans too", but on the other hand 58% is pretty much the same as Chavez' two previous election results and in a country with no compulsory voting represents a significant turnout of the poorer classes.

Indeed groups monitoring the election to ensure there was no impropriety were surprised at the sheer size of the turnout and the patience with which people waited to vote. These international monitor such as the Carter foundation headed by Jimmy Carter repudiated opposition claims that the election was a fraud saying the results tallied with their audits and were quite valid.

I haven't found any comment by either of the US presidential candidates both of whom made threatening remarks towards Venezuala as part of their electioneering.

Related Link