This is a stunning result and a blow to Chavez's dream of eternal rule.
President Hugo Chavez suffered a stunning defeat Monday in a referendum that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and impose a socialist system in this major U.S. oil supplier.Even just talking about eternal rule for any candidate is creepy and with Chavez in particular, yikes. I had flashbacks to my recent visit to Egypt where the locals complained about the eternal rule of Mubarak. Egyptians consistently grumbled about Bush/Blair though they always said "at least you can eventually get rid of those guys. We can't. We're stuck with Mubarak and his son forever."
Voters rejected the sweeping measures Sunday by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council. She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible.
