Chavez re-elected to six-year term

Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez comfortably won re-election on Sunday, quashing the opposition’s best chance at unseating him in 14 years and cementing himself as a dominant figure in modern Latin American history.

“The candidate Hugo Rafael Chavez with 54.52 percent of the votes, 7,444,082 votes The candidate Henrique Capriles with 44.97 percent of the votes, 6,151,544 votes,” the president of the National Electoral Council Tibisay Lucena said. 

Chavez’s victory was considerably slimmer than his win of 25 percentage points in 2006, reflecting anger at his failure to fix basic problems such as crime, blackouts and corruption. But record turnout of 80 percent on Sunday will boost Chavez’s democratic credentials, though critics said his use of state resources made a mockery of fairness during the campaign.

Upon hearing the news, crowds of supporters roared, and the smoke of fireworks clouded the air.

At opposition campaign headquarters, youthful state governor Capriles put on a brave face, celebrating his “house-by-house” campaign as the start of a long road to changing the direction of the country.

“I send my congratulations to the candidate, the President of the republic.  From here, I want to send him my congratulations and I want to say to him that hopefully he realizes the expression of the people today,” he said as he conceded defeat.

“I hope a political movement that has been in power for 14 years understands that almost half the country does not agree with it,” a subdued and tired-looking Capriles told crestfallen supporters.

Opposition leaders appeared crushed by the loss, with some Capriles supporters bursting into tears at his campaign headquarters. In the background, the firecrackers of celebrating Chavez supporters could be heard.

Waving flags and sounding horns, throngs of supporters surrounded Miraflores palace to celebrate the re-election victory.

A fist-pumping Chavez led the crowd in celebration from the balcony of the presidential palace – just months after cancer treatment had taken him out of the public eye and left him fending off rumors he was dying.

Dressed in a signature red shirt, 58-year-old Chavez sent a message to the opposition. 

“To those who promote hate, to those who promote social poison, to those who are always trying to deny all the good things that happen in Venezuela, I invite them to dialogue, to debate and to work together for Venezuela, for the Bolivarian Venezuela,” he said.

“That’s why I start by sending this greeting to them and extending these two hands and heart to them in the name of all of us because we’re brothers in the fatherland of Bolivar,” he said.        

At home, casting himself as an heir to independence hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez has poured billions of dollars in oil revenues into anti-poverty programs, and skillfully used his humble roots and folksy oratory to build a close connection with the masses.

In the past, Chavez has taken advantage of election wins to press forward with radical reforms. His nationalizations may now turn to some untouched corners of Venezuela’s banking, food and health industries. A new six-year term will extend his rule of the OPEC member state to two decades, giving him a chance to deepen his oil-revenue-fueled socialism while continuing to support left-wing allies in Latin America, though a possible recurrence of cancer still hangs over him.

During a year’s treatment starting in mid-2011, Chavez endured three operations for two cancerous tumors, and chemotherapy that left him bald, exhausted and fearing death at his lowest point. He wrongly declared himself cured once, and repeated that in July after a recurrence.

Chavez’s new six-year term leading the nation of 29 million people begins on January 10.