Chavez wants another vote

MiamiHerald.com ^ | Sat. Jan. 12, 2008

[jsh3180]

CARACAS -- and Wire Reports

President Hugo Chávez said Friday he will try again to change Venezuela's rules to allow unlimited presidential reelection -- a proposal rejected by voters just last month.

Making his annual address to the legislature, Chávez said he would call a referendum in 2010 with two questions: Should the president be recalled and should the president be allowed ``indefinite reelection?''

Chávez's proposals for 60-plus constitutional reforms to allow, among other things, indefinite reelection and officially declare Venezuela to be a ''socialist'' nation were narrowly defeated in a Dec. 2 vote.

Chávez's six-year term of office is to expire in 2013. But the president has often said that he intends to remain in power until the 2020s.

Chávez also repeated previous threats to seize private property from businesses if they are caught hoarding products, even as Venezuela struggles with high inflation and shortages of some basic foods.

He warned that price speculation is occurring ''at all levels of society, from the big capitalists to the small shopkeepers,'' and said his government could expropriate property from individuals or companies that purportedly sit on goods for months to sell them later at inflated prices.

Annual inflation soared to 22.5 percent in 2007 -- the highest official rate in Latin America -- according to the Central Bank.

Chávez -- a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- has made similar threats in the past. No such takeovers have occurred so far, however, and Venezuela continues to have many private supermarkets and food distributors.

Some food staples covered by price controls -- sugar, cooking oil, milk, black beans, eggs and chicken -- are sporadically hard to find in supermarkets, and Chávez's critics warn that shortages are likely to persist as long as the price controls are maintained.

[jsh3180]

Hugo's days are numbered, I hope. He's losing his popularity rapidly and with 22% inflation, food shortages and the like......methinks he's got limited time left.

[trek]

Yep. If Hugo were a stock, I’d want to be net short.

[Chode]

Chavez: "You are a devil, you smell like sulfur, you are a drunk, you are the demon, you are a dictator, you are an assassin Mr. Devil, you are..."

Bush: "YEAH, Yeah, yeah, WHATever... just fill'er up MonkeyBoy!!!"

[SampleMan]

Paraphrasing Stalin, “He who gets to count the votes wins.” i.e. “Keep counting until you win.”

[KarlInOhio]

Has anyone heard what the real count of the last vote was? I know the "official" one was that Chavez just barely lost, but I understand that was what some of the generals allowed him to claim after he had been spanked pretty badly in the vote.

[Cheburashka]

Why would Baby Huey release real vote numbers for an election he tried to steal?

[KarlInOhio]

I'm thinking of one of the generals who said "This was too big of loss for you to try to steal" letting slip what the real number were. I wouldn't expect Chavez to tell?

What happened to his parrot? Was Hugo tired of being upstaged by its more rational economic plan so he had it shot?