VENEZULA: Venezuela's left-wing President Hugo Chavez won a recall referendum on his divisive rule in a vote backed yesterday by international observers who said they had so far found no "element of fraud".
Former US President Jimmy Carter, who led a mission to monitor the vote, said verification by observers tallied with preliminary results from the National Electoral Council, which gave Mr Chavez 58 per cent of the vote.
"We have so far not found any element of fraud in this process and we want to be clear about that," said Mr Carter, who has worked for more than a year to end Venezuela's simmering political crisis.
Electoral authorities were scheduled to release final figures later in the day, but with 94 per cent of electoral rolls counted, 58 per cent of voters cast ballots against removing the former army officer from office, National Electoral Council president, Mr Francisco Carrasquero, said.
Before dawn Mr Chavez, who survived a coup two years ago and a gruelling oil strike a year later, appeared on the balcony of Miraflores presidential palace to lead hundreds of supporters in celebrations and singing the national anthem.
"The Venezuelan people have spoken and the people's voice is the voice of God!" roared Mr Chavez, who has diverted wealth from oil sales to popular social programmes offering housing, food and medical care for the poor.
Before Mr Carter's comments, opposition leaders called for street protests to challenge the vote results as a fraud engineered through the use of electronic voting machines.
"We can't say to Venezuelans who came out to vote in massive numbers and who are being robbed of a huge victory that we are going to think for 24 hours," said opposition leader Mr Antonio Ledezma. "We have to take to the streets."
The judgment of observers, led by Mr Carter and the Organization of American States, was seen as key to political stability in the world's number five oil exporter.
During their year-long battle for the vote, Mr Chavez foes have criticized top National Electoral Council officials as biased in favour of the president who they accuse of increasingly authoritarian rule.
Venezuelans turned out in massive numbers for the vote, which began early on Sunday and dragged on past midnight as some voters complained of delays and difficulties with new touch-screen election machines.
The international community hoped the recall would help end the often violent confrontation between Mr Chavez and his critics who say he is determined to reshape his nation into a Cuba-style communist state.
The vote had stoked fears of renewed violence, especially if the results were close. Scattered small protests broke out in Caracas, but the capital remained generally calm. Oil markets had worried a Chavez defeat could trigger unrest in the military and the state oil firm PDVSA, which the tough-talking nationalist has purged to ensure key posts are in the hands of his loyalists.
Oil prices sat near record highs over $46 a barrel even though news Mr Chavez had won and would serve out his term until 2007 calmed jitters over disruptions from Venezuela, a key supplier to the US market.
A clean victory for Chavez leaves his critics with few options but to regroup before congressional elections next year and a presidential election in 2006.