Venezuelans Vote on Chávez's Term

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 15 -- For the second time in 14 months, President Hugo Chávez tried Sunday to persuade Venezuelans to end term limits through a referendum that, if approved, would allow him to rule far into the 21st century to complete his socialist transformation of this oil-rich country.

A spirited get-out-the-vote campaign by both the government and its most determined foes pushed Venezuelan voters to the polls. Sound trucks blaring bugles awakened voters across the country before dawn, and long lines were in place at 6 a.m. The vote was predicted to be close, and results were not expected until several hours after polls closed at 6 p.m.

In a decade that has seen a string of elections, abstention has generally been low, in one case dropping to just 25 percent of the electorate. But some political analysts expected abstention to rise in this referendum, citing "electoral fatigue." Venezuelans voted as recently as November for governors and mayors, with opposition politicians wresting control of key cities and states from Chávez's allies.

A former army paratrooper, Chávez took office in 1999 and has since amassed overwhelming control over virtually every government institution. Using Venezuela's oil revenues as the engine for his so-called Bolivarian revolution, he launched myriad social programs that have improved the lives of millions and won him strong backing from the poor.

In a two-month campaign before Sunday's vote, Chávez asked those Venezuelans to support him in yet another election -- one that gives him the chance to run for reelection in 2012 and rule until 2019, two decades after he first took power. The president, 54, has characterized the vote -- as he has done with many over the years -- as a plebiscite on his rule.

"Today, my political destiny is being decided," Chávez said in brief remarks after casting his ballot. "This is important for me, as a human being, as a soldier in this struggle. It is important, and I ask God that this process have a good completion and that, at last, the wishes of the Venezuelan people be imposed."

In December 2007, in Chávez's first electoral defeat, voters rejected a broad constitutional amendment that would have expanded the president's powers. The cornerstone of that proposed change was a provision that would have ended term limits.

As in that vote, the outcome of Sunday's referendum has important ramifications not only here, but throughout the region.

With the price of oil rising steadily during much of his presidency, Chávez has supplied cut-rate oil to Caribbean nations, purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in Argentine debt and provided social aid of all kinds to poorer nations such as Bolivia. That, along with his verbal attacks against the United States, has made him one of Latin America's most important leaders, and perhaps the region's most visible.

The country that has the most riding on Venezuela's victory is Cuba, which in Chávez found a steady, loyal benefactor to replace the old Soviet Union. Venezuela provides 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil to Cuba daily, an important economic crutch for a Communist country with a long-stagnant economy.

"Our future is inseparable," Fidel Castro, who led Cuba until 2006, said in his regular column, reproduced in Cuba's state press.

"There is no alternative but victory," wrote Castro, who took power in 1959 and has been a mentor and friend to Chávez. "The destiny of the people of 'Our America' depends very much on this victory, and it will be an event that will influence the rest of the planet."