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Venezuelan president votes at
regional election
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez and his opposition
candidates voted for state
governors and mayor son Sunday,
with tens of thousands of police
and soldiers deployed around the
country to maintain order.
Chavez said the election is transparent and open to the world. He
also expressed confidence that his supporters will win a majority of
the 23 state governorships, more than 330 municipal posts and 249
seats in regional assemblies.
The president said he was pleased with voter turnout and would work
with the winners to push his revolution for the poor to a new phase.
More than 120,000 military troops and police were around voting
centers to prevent clashes between supporters of political rivals.
National Elections Council Director Jorge Rodriguez said Sunday
morning that the situation in the country is completely normal.
Lines at voting centers in poor districts, where support for Chavez
is strongest, were longer than other areas.
The Organization of American States and the Carter Center were not
present for Sunday's election, but more than 100 observers from
Latin American nations will supervise the vote.
Chilean local elections run smoothly
Chilean Interior Minister Jose Insulza said Sunday the nationwide
local elections ran smoothly, as unarmed forces guarded the
electoral process.
Chileans headed to the poll stations to cast their votes in a good
order on Sunday.
"The principal novelty of the year is that the military are
supporting the voting locales unarmed. This is very important to the
country. People keeping law and order are unarmed and this seems
very important to me," said the minister.
Meanwhile, Alberto Cienfuegos, general director of the armed police,
said some 500 people have been arrested for violating the Electoral
Law.
He believed that the detainees belong, in equal proportions, to the
left Alliance for Chile, and the ruling center-left Coalition of
Parties for Democracy.
In this election, 31 mayors and town councilors will be elected in
345 municipalities.
Brazil's ruling party likely to lose biggest stronghold
Brazil's ruling Worker's Party may lose one of its biggest
strongholds in the city of Sao Paulo, according to preliminary
results of Sunday's municipal run-off election.
Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial and financial hub, has been a
stronghold of the Worker's Party for 16 years.
Jose Serra, former health minister, who was beat by President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva two years ago in the presidential election, has
won 55 percent of the counted 83 percent votes, according to the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
Serra, 62, looks set to took the helm of the city from its incumbent
Marta Suplicy of Silva's Workers Party, who got 44 percent of the
counted votes.
Despite its loss in several other important cities, the Worker's
Party nearly doubled its total of mayoral seats to 389
municipalities in the first round of the mayoral elections.
UN expects FARC to consider humanitarian exchange proposal
The United Nations expected the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) to consider in a constructive way
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's proposal for the humanitarian
exchange, UN special envoy James Lemoyne said on Sunday.
The UN said in a statement that it values the new proposal on
humanitarian exchange between the FARC and the government, which is
supported by the Catholic Church and the families of the victims.
Last Thursday, Uribe proposed to the FARC that the two sides to
negotiate in the Apostolic nuncio's premises, or in an embassy in
Bogota, in five days.
However, the Colombian leader rejected a FARC proposal to
demilitarize an area to swap hostages for its jailed members.
An eventual humanitarian exchange deal would lead to the release of
22 politicians, 37 members of the military and three US citizens, in
exchange for 50 FARC guerrillas in Colombian prisons.
The FARC, the largest and oldest guerrilla organization in Colombia,
has at least 17,000 men operating in different regions of the
country.
Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade civil war, in which
leftist rebels, far-right paramilitaries and government troops fight
each other, killing about 3,500 people every year.
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