Venezuelans Return Chávez to Power By a Landslide

Hugo Chávez today began a third six-year term as president of Venezuela after trouncing his rival, Manuel Rosales.

The national electoral council said Mr Chávez had won 61% of the vote while Mr Rosales, the governor of an oil-producing province, had won 38% after nearly 80% of the vote had been counted.

Wearing his trademark red shirt, Mr Chávez told cheering supporters at the presidential palace late yesterday his landslide victory was a blow to the Bush administration, the frequent target of tirades from the Venezuelan leader.

"It's another defeat for the devil who tries to dominate the world," Mr Chávez told a crowd of red-shirted supporters listening to him under pouring rain. "Down with imperialism. We need a new world."

Even before polls closed, Chávez supporters were celebrating in the streets, setting off fireworks and cruising Caracas, honking horns and shouting: "Chávez isn't going anywhere."

Since he first won office in 1998, Chávez has increasingly dominated all branches of government. His allies now control congress, state offices and the judiciary.

Current law prevents him from running again in 2012, but he has said he plans to seek constitutional reforms that would include an end to limits on presidential terms.

Mr Chávez is the fourth leftwing leader to win an election in Latin America in the past five weeks. Ecuador's Rafael Correa, an ally of the Venezuelan, won a runoff last week after promising sweeping political reforms; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua also won recent presidential contests.

Mr Rosales acknowledged defeat but promised to keep fighting. He was greeted by cries of "coward" by some upset supporters as he left his campaign headquarters.

"We recognise they beat us today, but we will continue the fight," said Mr Rosales, 53, who drew his main support from the middle and upper classes.

Mr Rosales, a cattle rancher who is now expected to return to his post of governor of the western state of Zulia, called the election a choice between freedom and increasing state control of people's lives. He also decried rampant crime and corruption, widely seen as Mr Chávez's main vulnerabilities.

The country's opposition movement struggled to challenge Mr Chávez after he defeated a recall referendum in 2004. Many opposition supporters believe Mr Chávez has an unfair advantage by controlling key institutions such as the election council.

But his supporters applaud the man they fondly call El Comandante for spending the country's oil wealth on free health and education programmes for the poor majority, who have long felt abandoned under a succession of governments.

Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, and soaring oil prices have made it the continent's fastest growing economy.

A retired army paratrooper who led a failed military rebellion before his first election win, Mr Chávez has survived a brief coup, an oil strike and scores of demonstrations during his seven years in the Miraflores presidential palace.