Chavistas Lose Referendum in a 'Photo Finish'

By a margin of 1.4 percent, the forces of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez lost a December 2 vote on a referendum of social programs that also would have lifted term limits for the presidency. Chávez called it a "photo finish." The United States reportedly spent $8 million dollars to sway the vote, and a CIA document uncovered by the Chavistas spelled out a thorough program of psy-ops and destabilization. Fidel Castro wrote on the Friday before the election, "The most sophisticated mass media technologically developed, designed to kill human beings and subjugate or exterminate whole peoples … is being used now against the Venezuelans, in an attempt to rip the ideas of Bolívar and Martí to shreds." The referendum would have helped the landless and small producers obtain land, given social security to laborers in the informal sector of the economy, reduced the work week from 40 to 36 hours a week with no reduction in pay, created open admissions for the universities, and sped up socialization of key industries. It would also have empowered the neighborhood councils so they could legislate and invest in their own communities. Wrote analyst James Petras, "The electorate supporting the constitutional amendments is voting in favor of their socio-economic and class interests; the issue of extended re-election of the President is not high on their priorities. And that is the issue that the Right has focused on in calling Chávez a 'dictator' and the referendum a 'coup'."