Venezuelans Reject Chavez Dictatorship

For several years, it seemed as if the Venezuelan people had gone crazy. Over various election cycles, they gradually had given away their freedom and allowed their madcap president to rule like a vociferous tyrant.

It seemed as if we were about to witness the creation of the world's first democratically elected dictatorship.

But a funny thing happened Sunday on the way to Hugo Chavez's crowning: His final move to consolidate his Cuba-style socialist dictatorship was rejected by Venezuelan voters.

Even the Chavez-controlled election authorities had to acknowledge that voters rejected Chavez's effort to remain in power indefinitely. They said Chavez lost by a 51 percent to 49 percent margin in a referendum that would have approved 69 amendments to the Venezuelan constitution and eliminated term limits for "el presidente."

Given the amount of cheating everyone expects the "Chavistas" to have done, the opposition probably won by a much bigger margin. Some polls had predicted Chavez would lose by as much as 20 percent! Had the "Chavistas" stolen this election, Venezuela might have been headed for massive street violence and even civil war.

It was a slap in the face to the high and mighty Chavez, who had asked the Venezuelan people to give up their last vestiges of freedom and democracy in exchange for better worker benefits and a six-hour workday.

In effect, Chavez was buying their votes! And still, he lost.

Venezuelans realized they were being asked to create a constitutional dictatorship — with a madman at its helm — and they finally said "no mas" to Chavez's power grab.

At stake were 69 Chavez-proposed amendments that would have given him the power to suspend civil liberties, censor the media, hand-pick local leaders and basically turn Venezuela into a totalitarian police state.

It also would have given him the right to run for re-election every seven years, indefinitely. Under current law, he would be barred from running after his current term expires in 2012. Yet Chavez already had announced he wanted to rule until at least 2021.

And for all that time, he was seeking unchecked power, enough to create a socialist state in which only those who support the regime are entitled to its benefits.

Apparently, this was enough to make Venezuelans step on the brakes. You would think they would have done it sooner — especially because Chavez has traveled around the world making a fool of himself and getting into spats with other world leaders — but they finally did it! At least for the moment, they've slowed the march of the so-called "Bolivarian Revolution" that aims to unite all of Latin America as one single country, under one single socialist dictator.

But what happens next? Can the new student-driven Venezuelan opposition begin to regain the power they have lost to the "Chavistas"?

After all, "el presidente" Chavez already has gone a long way toward becoming "el dictador" Chavez. In other elections and referendums, Venezuelans already have given away protections that are not easy to retrieve.

After announcing the referendum results, Tibisay Lucena, the president of the National Electoral Council, said the process "shows the entire world that (Venezuela is) a democratic country."

Really?

If the president controls the legislature, the courts, the army and most of the media, should we still call him a president because he was elected democratically? Or is he an elected dictator?

Without a system of checks and balances, at least for the next five years that Chavez still will be in power, can we really call Venezuela a democracy?

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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