Chavez claims victory in referendum

PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez survived a popular referendum to oust him according to early results yesterday as Venezuela's opposition swiftly claimed fraud.

Backers of the leftist populist president set off fireworks and began celebrating in the streets of the capital in the pre-dawn darkness upon hearing the news from Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Elections Council.

Mr Carrasquero stopped short of declaring Mr Chavez the outright winner. But vote counts he released showed the firebrand former army paratrooper had a virtually insurmountable 58-42% lead, with 94% of the vote counted.

Mr Carrasquero said 4,991,483 votes had been cast against Mr Chavez's recall, with 3,576,517 in favour. Mr Chavez claimed victory in a victory speech from a palace balcony.

"It is absolutely impossible that the victory of the 'no' be reversed," he told thousands of cheering and whistling backers.

Haydee Deutsch, an opposition leader, said fraud had been committed and that the opposition "has no doubt that we won by an overwhelming majority."

At the opposition headquarters in Caracas, opponents watching Mr Carrasquero's announcement on television shouted "Fraud! Fraud!" "This is impossible to swallow," said Jesus Torrealba, another opposition leader.

Indicating a possible split in the five-member National Elections Council, Sobella Mejia - one of the members who is aligned with the opposition - told a news conference before the tallies were announced that any release of partial figures would be premature and invalid. It was not clear how that would affect the results. The first-ever recall vote for a president in Venezuela's history was aimed at putting a lid on years of often violent political unrest and a bloody coup and came after a lengthy and complicated petitioning process. Uncertainty about the future of the world's fifth-largest oil exporter has contributed to record high oil prices, which have reached over $46 a barrel. Mr Chavez had repeatedly claimed that the opposition leaders were pawns of US President George W Bush, but he has since had words of reconciliation for them.

"Those who voted for the 'yes' should not feel defeated. I want us to send them our respect," Mr Chavez said.

8,568,000 votes cast, Sunday's referendum shattered the previous record of voter turnout, when 7.5 million Venezuelans voted in the 1988 presidential elections.