CARACAS (Venezuela) - President Hugo Chavez won re-election Sunday
(this morning, Singapore time), defeating challenger Henrique
Capriles and gaining six more years to cement his legacy and press
ahead with his crusade for socialism in Venezuela.
With about 90 per cent of votes counted, Chavez had more than 54
percent of the vote, and Capriles had 45 per cent, National
Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena said. She said 81 per
cent of the nearly 19 million registered voters cast ballots, one
of the largest turnouts in years.
It was Chavez's third re-election victory in nearly 14 years in
office, though by a smaller margin than in 2006, when he won 63 per
cent of the votes.
Fireworks exploded in downtown Caracas, and Chavez's supporters
celebrated waving flags and jumping for joy outside the
presidential palace.
Chavez won more than 7.4 million votes, beating Capriles by more
than 1.2 million votes, Lucena said.
Capriles congratulated Chavez and told his supporters not to feel
defeated.
"We have planted many seeds across Venezuela and I know that these
seeds are going to produce many trees," he told supporters in a
speech late yesterday.
Chavez spent heavily in the months before the vote, building public
housing and bankrolling expanded social programs providing benefits
to poor families.
Capriles, a youthful state governor, became a strong challenger
after winning a February primary and rallied an opposition that
grew more united and better organized than in the past. But in the
end, it was no match for Chavez's electoral
prowess.
Just as polls closed on Sunday night, hundreds of young red-shirted
Chavistas took to the streets on motorcycles and said they were
ready to begin celebrating.
"Let them accept defeat," Kleiver Gutierrez said of the
opposition.
People holding posters of Chavez shouted to passing cars outside
the Miraflores presidential palace.
One pro-Chavez voter, private bodyguard Carlos Julio Silva, said
that whatever his faults, Chavez deserved to win for spreading the
nation's oil wealth to the poor with free medical care, public
housing and other government largess. The country has the world's
largest proven oil reserves.
"There is corruption, there's plenty of bureaucracy, but the people
have never had a leader who cared about this country," Silva said
after voting for Chavez at a school in the Caracas slum of Petare.
"That's why the people are going to re-elect Hugo Rafael Chavez
Frias."
At many polling places, voters began lining up hours before polls
opened at dawn, some snaking for blocks in the baking Caribbean
sun. Some shaded themselves with umbrellas. Vendors grilled meat
and some people drank beer.
Maria Leonis was selling CDs of Chavez's campaign theme music on a
sidewalk next to a polling center. "Today I've sold about 100 CDs,
just Chavez's song," Leonis said, adding that she supported Chavez
because "I want to keep seeing change."
Chavez's critics say the president has inflamed divisions by
labeling his opponents "fascists," "Yankees" and "neo-Nazis," and
it's likely hard for many of his opponents to stomach another six
years of the loquacious and conflictive leader.
Some said before the vote that they'd consider leaving the country
if Chavez won.
Gino Caso, an auto mechanic, said Chavez is power-hungry and out of
touch with problems such as crime. He said his son had been robbed,
as had neighboring shops.
"I don't know what planet he lives on," Caso said, gesturing with
hands blackened with grease. "He wants to be like Fidel Castro -
end up with everything, take control of the
country."
The 40-year-old Capriles, a wiry former governor affectionately
called "Skinny" by supporters, infused the opposition with new
optimism, and opinion polls pointed to him giving Chavez his
closest election contest ever.
Chavez spoke little during the campaign about his fight with
cancer, which since June 2011 has included surgery to remove tumors
from his pelvic region as well as chemotherapy and radiation
treatment. He has said his most recent tests showed no sign of
illness. AP
http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC121008-0000069/Chavez-wins-Venezuela-re-election,-says-electoral-council