Chavez followers gather support for unlimited presidential reelection
12/12/2008 17:30
Followers of Venezuela's ruling party began yesterday 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 yesterday 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 by the 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 favor of the US), 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.
Xinhua
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