Venezuela Election Body Agrees to Chavez Referendum

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's election authorities agreed early on Thursday to hold a nonbinding referendum in February demanded by the opposition on whether President Hugo Chavez should resign, an option dismissed by the populist leader who refuses to step down.

The consultative vote, scheduled for Feb. 2, would not legally force Chavez from office. But his foes believe a decisive rejection would deliver a political defeat that could press the president into resigning and trigger elections in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

Alfredo Avella, president of the National Electoral Council, said the institution that oversees elections and polls agreed to stage the popular referendum on the question of whether Chavez should resign immediately from office.

The proposed referendum will likely become caught up in fierce legal wrangling in the Supreme Court and the National Assembly as the government contests its validity.

Opposition leaders earlier this month handed in more than 2 million signatures demanding the immediate vote on Chavez's rule. They have threatened to stage a general strike on Monday if the government does not accept the referendum and a broader electoral accord during peace talks brokered by the Organization of American States.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who was elected in 1998, is locked in a bitter struggle with political enemies who blame his left-wing reforms for destroying the nation's economy and who accuse him of dictatorial rule.

Chavez said on Sunday he would not resign even if 90 percent of the electorate voted against him in a consultative poll. The president insists the constitution only allows for a revocatory or binding referendum on his mandate in August 2003 -- halfway through his current term.

Fours years after his landslide election victory, the tough-talking president's popularity has plummeted. Chavez says he retains strong support for his policies aimed at easing poverty and stamping out corruption.

International mediators have tried to broker an electoral accord to resolve the nation's political tensions. In April, rebel military officers ousted the president in a short-lived coup. Frequent street clashes and protests have kept Venezuela jittery since the April 11-14 uprising.

Top U.S. Diplomat Otto Reich Calls Chavez Rule Disappointing*** CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - The United States' top diplomat for Latin America Tuesday criticized leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying his rule had been disappointing and urging him to change his style of government. Otto Reich, who was recently named special adviser for Latin America to Secretary of State Colin Powell, rebuked the Venezuelan leader for saying that he would not resign even if he massively lost a nonbinding referendum on his rule. "I don't believe that President Chavez could have said that seriously," Reich told Venezuela's Globovision television news channel in an interview in Washington broadcast on Tuesday. ***

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Odd, isn't it, how Chavez has total disrespect for Venezuelan law and the nation's Constitution, except when it comes to extending his evil, murderous reign of terror?

This must be some kind of universal left wing, liberal mental impairment since I notice the identical phenomenon with Democrats in this country. It is no wonder the Democrats lust for utterly corrupted, oops I meant "activist," courts.

The sad thing about the venezuelan problem is that, while chavez is a megalomaniac, tyrant, and apparnently incapable of running a government without alienating virtually everyone around him, the opposition is most of the things he says they are as well. He certainly has been and is a threat to the economic and political interests of the opposition leaders, who most certainly, collectively, do not give a fig about anything other than enriching themselves in place of chavez.

The only possible benefit for the people in venz. of replacing chavez is that they might have some leaders who actually know how to run a government, and some small amount of the economic benefits would trickle down to the bulk of the population (the rest going to the new leadership, as opposed to the chavez regime), as well as the benefit of not living in what is becoming a political police state.

A good illustration of my second paragraph above is the dems and gop here. Both generally use foreign policy as a tool for u.s. multinational corporations, and they use some high-profile hot-button issues to define their differences for voters, i.e. guns, abortion, etc..I care about gun rights a lot but the parties are 80% identical in platform.

..in any event, government creeps forward into our lives under both parties, taxes gradually go up (this miniscule tax cut is the best they can do?), our rights become provisionary, and the big benefit of having gop in control is you don't have a cabal of absolute totalitarian-leaning politicians who will stop at nothing to subvert the system in place (the clinton gang). I will reserve judgement on the judicial nominations until I see who he actually puts up there. We could very well have a moderate appointed to scotus for racial motives.

Description: tyrant.

Prescription: assassination, auto-da-fe.

Otto Reich, answer your page.

otto-da-fe

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