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Venezuela's Chavez on brink of referendum defeat (Hannah Baldock, 16 August 2004, Independent)

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, looked to be losing his grip on power last night as exit polls showed him to be trailing the opposition by almost a million votes.

The figures were early indications that, for the first time in the country's history, the President may have his term in office cut short by a referendum.

The mid-morning results showed that the opposition, already boasting an enormous 1,758,000 votes to Chavez's 798,000, is well on its way to reaching the target of 3.76 million votes it needs to oust the authoritarian, left-wing President. Turn-out for the referendum was high, with millions of Venezuelans queuing from the early hours at polling stations all over the oil-rich country to decide the political fate of the firebrand Mr Chavez.

Our military should be standing by, just in case hard power and not just soft is required for this regime change.

MORE (via Uncle Bill):
Chavez survives recall vote (AP, 8/16/04)

President Hugo Chavez survived a popular referendum to oust him, according to results Monday, while Venezuela's opposition swiftly claimed fraud.

Backers of the leftist populist president set off fireworks and began celebrating in the streets of the capital in the pre-dawn darkness upon hearing the news from Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Elections Council.

Carrasquero stopped short of declaring Chavez the outright winner. But vote counts he released showed the firebrand former army paratrooper had a virtually insurmountable 58-42% lead, with 94% of the vote counted.

Carrasquero said 4,991,483 votes had been cast against Chavez's recall, with 3,576,517 in favor.

Chavez claimed victory in a victory speech from a palace balcony.

"It is absolutely impossible that the victory of the 'no' be reversed," Chavez told thousands of cheering and whistling backers.

Fetch the piano wire.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 16, 2004 12:00 AM