HUGO Chavez and his supporters were yesterday celebrating a referendum victory that allows him to seek another term as Venezuela's president, as opponents complained that his use of state funds had made the campaign unfair.
Mr Chavez, who has been in power for ten years and plans to rule for decades, pledged to repay his supporters for Sunday's victory by combating their No 1 concern – crime.
The fragmented opposition, spearheaded by an inexperienced and under-fin
anced student movement, said the president's win had been secured with huge government funding and blanket state television coverage.
The leading opposition newspaper El Nacional ran an editorial under the headline "Another sham", which complained Venezuela's electoral commission had favoured "a military regime that promotes hatred and divides Venezuela in two halves".
Popular for spending freely on clinics, schools and food handouts in city slums and remote villages, Mr Chavez won 54 per cent of the vote, allowing him to stand for office as long as he keeps winning elections.
Teodoro Petkoff, a veteran rival, denounced Mr Chavez's "illegal and unscrupulous" use of state funds but also captured the mood of defiance in an opposition that must now seek to defeat him in a presidential election in just under four years.
"They can celebrate today, but on the horizon of 2012 looms a ghost of his inevitable defeat," Mr Petkoff said.
Mr Chavez was defeated in a similar referendum in 2007, and his victory showed his resilience and solidified his position as both the most dominant figure in Venezuelan politics and the leader of Latin America's hard-left.
With the global economic crisis overshadowing his win, Mr Chavez was cautious, telling supporters his government would not be able to accelerate its drive to create a socialist state this year. But he did promise to combat crime and corruption.
