VENEZUELA: CHAVEZ WINS

Vheadline: President Hugo Chavez Frias wins the RR with 58.2%

Shortly after 4:00 a.m. this morning, National Elections Council (CNE) president Francisco Carresquero went on linked radio/TV to announce preliminary results in yesterday's recall referendum with 94.49% of votes already tallied: President Hugo Chavez Frias got 4,991,483 votes (58.25%) while the opposition mustered only 3,576,557 votes (41.74%).

Independent: Chavez claims victory in referendum

President Hugo Chavez survived a popular referendum to oust him in a vote that attracted so many Venezuelans that they overwhelmed ballot stations, according to results announced today.

Backers of the leftist populist president immediately set off fireworks and began celebrating in the streets of the capital in the pre-dawn darkness.

Under Chavez, the government has paid for literacy programs, scholarships and free medical care for the poor. Thousands of Cuban doctors, dentists and nurses work in poor barrios across this South American nation.

Chavez called on the opposition to accept the results, and pledged that he would also do so.

ZMAG: The Calm Before the?

The Opposition Plan

One can put together the comments of the various opposition figures (please see the previous entry on the Mendoza press conference) and get a picture of what the opposition plan is. Short of some kind of violent provocation (and there have been warnings of that as well) to try to discredit the whole electoral process, the opposition has signalled repeatedly that it plans to announce the results at 2pm. Then, when the real results are announced after the polls close at 6pm, the opposition will say (assuming that the opposition loses the referendum, which it will if there is not fraud) that its results disagree with the official results and argue that a fraud has occurred. At that point things will depend on the integrity of the Carter Center and the OAS (gulp). That is not strictly true. There are all kinds of observers here, more media than ever before, so things will depend on the ability of everyone with integrity to get the truth out past all of those who are going to lie about the result. My own suspicion, based on the highly unscientific methods of watching the SI rallies and talking to random people, is that the result will be closer than the NO forces might like, but quite decisive