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Thousands rally to support Chavez bid to end term limits
Web posted at: 2/14/2009 8:51:22
Source ::: AFP
CARACAS: Thousands of Venezuelans gathered in central Caracas to support President Hugo Chavez’s bid to end term limits for elected officials, which would allow him to seek re-election in 2012. “My heart tells me that you won’t let me down on Sunday 15,” Chavez said to his cheering, red-clad crowd of supporters, referring to the date of the referendum on changing the constitution. The fiercely anti-liberal Latin American leader lost a first bid to change the constitution which included a measure to allow unlimited presidential terms in December 2007. Some 17 million Venezuelans are eligible to vote again tomorrow after a tightly-fought campaign. Chavez is popular with many of Venezuela’s poor for the health and education programmes funded by the OPEC country’s oil wealth. He seeks more time to carry out his self-styled socialist revolution. “We want the president to stay,” said Maria Castro, a resident of a working class Caracas neighbourhood taking part in the demonstration on the last day of the campaign. Chavez “has given us a lot. He’s the only one who admitted that poor people also have rights.” “If we lose, all the social programmes will also disappear,” said Cecilia Contreras, another demonstrator. The opposition, which marched en masse in Caracas on Saturday, highlights rising crime, corruption and inflation in its campaign against Chavez and ending term limits, which it says would be bad for democracy. A group of opposition students gathered in a square in the east of the capital on Thursday and complained that the government had refused to give them permits to demonstrate elsewhere.
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