In a bold move Venezuela abolished the term limits on all political offices including the office of president in a referendum held Sunday, February 15, 2009. This has come as a victory for Hugo Chávez, the current president who has held power for the past decade. This change comes 4 years before Chávez would have been forced to step down from power. While it does not mean that Chávez is guaranteed to be reelected, it puts him in the position to be able to continue as historically indicated.

After failing to gain support in the 2007 referendum on the same subject, Chávez was able to garner a 55% ‘yes’ vote in the current referendum. Although there was no organized opposition to the referendum, many spoke out against the tactics that Chávez used, including blatant exploitation of state resources and funds to support the ‘yes’ campaign. As well, while Venezuela has a very high literacy rate (approximately 93%), the referendum question was worded in such a way that detractors criticized the government for the density of the language.

This is not the first radical change that Chávez has been involved in controversial events. Having led a failed coup d’état in 1992, Chávez ran for president and was elected in 1998. In the first year of his term, he passed a new constitution, which led to another election in 2000. The campaign was criticized as a general chaotic mess, as few people were educated on the issues, as well as polling workers were poorly trained, among other things. In 2003 this election was petitioned for recall by 3.2m people, almost a million more than was needed to do so (2.4m). After fighting over forged signatures, the Supreme Court ruled that more than 800,000 of the disputed signatures were indeed valid, and the National Electoral Council (CNE) put the number of signatures at 2,436,830. In the end forged IDs and equipment to forge documents was found in the possession of those running the petition. The petition went through, and it seemed that people who had signed the petition were fired from government positions. The actual balloting was no better than any of the others that we have discussed.

The last controversy to look at involving Chávez is his reelection in 2006, which he won at 62%. He refused to debate his opponent, Manuel Rosales, after Rosales called him out to do so, saying that “the candidates from the opposition do not even have the condition to debate a schoolboy or girl in sixth grade from a Bolivarian school.” Concern was raised over the accuracy of the voter registry, as it was apparent that a number of deceased persons were still listed. As well, there was undue pressure on government employees to support Chávez, proof of which was a 14 minute video that showed the minister in charge of energy telling workers to vote for Chávez or leave their jobs. Albeit this was a much less controversial election in terms of abuse of the democratic process, Chávez uses the rules only when they suit him.

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