Chávez's Referendum Gamble Hangs in Balance

Venezuela voted yesterday in a referendum on extending President Hugo Chávez's powers after a bruising campaign of insults and clashes that left the outcome hanging in the balance.

Both sides agreed that the proposed sweeping revision to the constitution marked a turning point in the president's effort to accelerate his self-styled socialist revolution.

Long lines of voters snaked outside some polling stations but others reported sparse turnouts, leaving analysts guessing whether Chávez's formidable electoral machine would again crush the opposition.

Government supporters in red T-shirts woke voters with fireworks and sounded the reveille with speakers mounted on lorries. "I'm very sure that everything is going to go very well," Chávez said after casting his ballot. Under unexpected pressure from a student-led protest movement he fired up supporters in recent days with verbal onslaughts against real and perceived foes, and said a vote against the referendum would be a vote for President George Bush.

Anti-democratic traitors were conspiring to assassinate him to protect the interests of Venezuela's traditional oligarchy, he said.

The aggressive rhetoric was an attempt to mobilize the barrios, the teeming slums where most Venezuelans live, to once more back a leader who lavishes oil revenues on social programs.

Opinion polls suggest Chávez, 53, remains highly popular but that most people are uneasy about abolishing presidential term limits and enshrining socialism in a revised constitution. Inflation and food shortages have eroded some support.

High-profile defectors from within his movement have described the proposed changes as a coup that would allow the former soldier to monopolise state power and be continuously elected. Chávez has spoken of ruling until 2050, when he would be 95.

"I've voted for him every time since 1998, but not this time. I'm worried where this is heading," said Jonathan Machado, a taxi driver in Barinas. "I want him to stay in office but on a leash."

The president says the 69 revised articles will give more power to the people, not him, by cementing the role of hundreds of thousands of new communal councils, which are the jewel in his participatory democracy.

Supporters say the changes are needed to consolidate a radical but peaceful transformation that has put South America's oil giant at the heart of the region's "pink tide" of left wing governments.

"He has woken us up, the poor," said Oscar Olachea, 35, a member of an agricultural cooperative. Chávez said that on the back of a referendum victory he would swiftly pass 100 new laws with a socialist bent.

Critics said the proposed changes are a recipe for Cuba-style tyranny inspired by the president's mentor, Fidel Castro. "Venezuela is at a great crossroads," said Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader.

Chávez says Venezuela will follow its own path. The wording of the proposed changes is sufficiently vague to allow hype and obfuscation on both sides. But it is clear that a president who controls the courts, the national assembly, the central bank and state-controlled industries will have much more leeway.

"If Chávez wins the referendum he may not realize our worst fears but he'll have the freedom to do so," said Genaro Méndez, the leader of a farmers' association. "It will be a different Venezuela."

In his own words

'The cardinal and the bishops are dolts, mental retards'

'President Uribe is lying in a shameless, horrible, ugly way. I think Colombia deserves another president, it deserves a better president'

Student protesters are 'spoilt brats' and 'fascists'

General Raul Baduel, an ally-turned foe, is a 'traitor' and 'should be taken to the execution wall'

'Before the world, I accuse the imperialist government of the United States of promoting my assassination'

'Hitler could be the boss of the CNN'