Chavez Followers Gather
Support For Unlimited
Presidential Reelection
Caracas - Followers of
Venezuela's ruling party
began Thursday to enlist
public support for a
constitutional amendment
to allow President Hugo
Chavez's reelection in
2012.
In cities across the
country, followers of
the ruling United
Socialist Party of
Venezuela set up
temporary stands to urge
passersby to sign the
petition in favor of the
constitutional
amendment.
The Venezuelan
parliament began
Thursday a process to
grant the country's
president unlimited
reelection.
A constitutional
amendment can be
requested by 30 percent
of national assembly
deputies, by 15 percent
of eligible voters or
bythe president of the
Council of Ministers.
Venezuela's constitution
allows one consecutive
reelection of the
president with a
six-year term.
Chavez has been seeking
to stay in power to
continue his programs,
which he considered have
achieved results but
have not been completed.
His reelection is
necessary to consolidate
the effort to establish
socialism in Venezuela,
he said after signing
the petition.
"The ones who want to be
a colony, the ones who
want to be slaves, the
ones who want to be
vassals of the
capitalism, go with
them, the pitiyanquis
(Venezuelan term used to
name those in favorof
the U.S.), with the
bourgeoisie," he wrote
on a board erected at a
downtown square in
Caracas.
The opposition said it
would organize a
national front against
the constitutional
amendment.
Chavez, who came to
power in 1999, was
reelected president of
Venezuela in December
2006 for a term expiring
in 2013.
Chavez proposed last
year to extend the
presidential term to
seven years and abolish
the reelection limit,
but his proposal was
voted down in a
referendum.
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