Chavez gets backing for third term

There is no deflecting Hugo Chavez. Just 15 months after Venezuelans balked at a referendum seeking to end term limits for their president, they found themselves being asked the same question all over again on Sunday – and gave in. Keep winning elections, they told him, and you can keep power.

Nor was the victory as slim as opinion polls had suggested. The election authority in Caracas confirmed that the "Yes" campaign, which had been powered by the entire government machinery, had won by a decisive margin of 54 per cent against 45 per cent. Thus, Mr Chavez now has the opportunity to run for a third six-year term when his current stint runs out in 2013. And who knows how many terms thereafter?

It was a harsh blow to Venezuela's opposition forces, which had celebrated the collapse of the last referendum in December 2006 and also made headway in mayoral and gubernatorial elections last November. But in this struggle, even with the help of students, they were overwhelmed by Mr Chavez.

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"This soldier is a pre-candidate for the presidency, for the period 2013-2019," a joyous Mr Chavez told crowds of red-shirted supporters in a speech from a balcony of the presidential palace on Sunday night. "We have opened the doors to the future," he said, adding that the future for Venezuela would continue to lie in "21st century socialism". As he spoke, fireworks lit up the sky.

Foes of Mr Chavez said the referendum had not been fairly fought. They claim state police had intimidated students when they gathered and sometimes denied them permits to rally, while every available government resource was made available to boost the "Yes" campaign. Banners for the "Yes" vote – "Si!" – were draped on every public building and jingles for it were played on public transport.

"More than a struggle against a proposal, this has been a struggle against the state," said Omar Barboza, president of A New Time, an opposition party. Though the focus has been on Mr Chavez, the vote also ends terms limits for all other popularly elected officials in Venezuela.

There is nothing certain, of course, about Mr Chavez's fate in the 2012 election, not least because Venezuela faces severe economic challenges. Most perilous for Mr Chavez is the fall in the price of oil. Revenue from the country's oil fields accounts for 90 per cent of its foreign earnings and has financed the social reforms on which Mr Chavez's popularity has been based.

The opposition remains fractured, with no single leader having the necessary stature to challenge the president. Mr Chavez may feel emboldened by Sunday's vote to marginalise the opposition further by giving more power to hand-picked members of local community councils. He may speed up economic reforms that have already seen large areas of industry put under state control.

The result may also bolster Mr Chavez as the self-declared leader of a leftist block of countries in the region, including Ecuador and Bolivia.

There is an effort under way in neighbouring Colombia to allow the President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative, to run again after his current term expires. And term-limit reforms have also been approved in Ecuador and Bolivia. "What Venezuelan voters decide is their business," said John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank. "But a threshold does seem to have been crossed."