Voters head to polls in Venezuela

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Venezuelans have began casting ballots in legislative elections that could pave the way for President Hugo Chavez to seek re-election next year, but most opposition parties were boycotting the polls, charging a lack of full transparency. Fourteen million Venezuelans are eligible to vote to renew the unicameral 167-member assembly for the next five years. But surveys forecast voter absenteeism as high as 71 per cent even before the opposition boycott.

Polls opened shortly after 0900 GMT, and the military was out in force with 120,000 troops on the streets. The boycott by five of seven opposition parties should allow Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement to obtain a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly which observers say will enable him to end presidential term limits, seek re-election next year, and tighten his control over other institutions. However, the boycott undercuts the perceived legitimacy of the balloting, and Mr Chavez has rallied voters to get to the polls.

The President said on radio and television that he called on "supporters of the government and supporters of other political currents to exercise their right to vote," after the bulk of opposition candidates withdrew from the race, citing technical complaints. "For no reason whatsoever, a minority group of political parties, a really small minority group, has pulled out of the electoral process," Mr Chavez said. "Those non-participating minorities ... are trying to lay the groundwork for destabilisation, and aggression against Venezuela," Mr Chavez said, who maintains the United States could invade his country or assassinate him.

He says "there is no political crisis here, as they want to make it seem". Mr Chavez accused the Opposition of seeking to carry Venezuela "down a violent path" and called its boycott part of a "subversive" US-inspired plot aimed at denying him a new six-year term in December 2006 presidential election. "We are convinced that the Bush strategy is to try to delegitimise the elections, because one of the principal obstacles they face in their campaign against Venezuela is the legal origin of the government," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said of US President George W Bush's administration. International election monitors - hundreds from the European Union and the Organisation of American States are on hand - have declared Venezuela's electoral process legitimate thus far.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1523269.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051204/ts_nm/venezuela_elections_dc_8