Venezuela Extends Polling Hours for Chavez Referendum

Venezuela extended polling hours for a referendum on whether to recall President Hugo Chavez after voters waited in line more than six hours to cast their ballots.

Polls will close at 8 p.m. (8 p.m. New York time), four hours later than originally planned, because of a high turnout, National Electoral Council Vice President Jorge Rodriguez said in a televised press conference in Caracas. New fingerprint scanners, put in place to guard against fraud, also contributed to delays.

I put my fingerprint in a machine and it didn't work, so I had to go to another machine,'' Chavez, 50, said after casting his ballot in western Caracas at midday.This slight delay adds with another and another and they accumulate and the lines are long.’’

The delays may cause both Chavez’s supporters and opponents to grow frustrated with the election process, increasing the chances of violence, Julia Buxton, a political science professor at Kingston University in Surrey, England, said in an interview. Concern the vote may prompt violence in the world’s fifth-largest oil supplier helped push crude prices to record highs Friday.

The problem is that all these delays are going to do is to increase tensions on both sides,'' Buxton said. Carter Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is among international observers monitoring the vote, said that the voting wasgoing quite well.’’ Lines snaked for more than five city blocks in Caracas as voters headed to the polls before they opened at 6 a.m.

The state oil company doubled security at its fields, refineries and storage tanks ahead of the vote, and the Venezuelan army stationed soldiers at the nation’s almost 9,000 polling stations.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Friday that crude prices would surge should unrest threaten oil production. Previous attempts to oust Chavez, including a military coup and a national strike, sparked deadly protests.

The big question at the end of the day is whether people will accept the results,'' Buxton said. The opposition, led by Enrique Mendoza, the governor of Miranda state, and Julio Borges, national coordinator for the First Justice Party, forced the referendum on Chavez after gathering 2.44 million signatures. Mendoza said at a press conference Friday that Chavez failed to combat crime and create jobs since taking office in 1999. `Jobs, Investments'We need jobs, we need investments,’’ Marco Falcon, a 65-year- old university professor, said after voting in favor of a recall in El Rosal, a middle-class neighborhood of the capital.

Posters plastered on lampposts and buildings across Caracas read: Yes for Venezuela'' andVote No.’’ A yes'' vote supports a recall and ano’’ vote is against it.

For Chavez to be recalled, the opposition must win a majority of votes and more than the 3.76 million that he won in 2000 when he stood for re-election because of changes in the constitution. About one third of polling stations use the scanners to verify the identity of voters.

Results will be released less than three hours after voting ends, according to the National Electoral Council.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who counts Cuban President Fidel Castro among his friends, doubled spending between January and May on education, health and other social programs. His standing improved in opinion polls last month by Consultores 21 and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc. A Consultores poll published in July showed 54 percent of registered voters wanted to recall Chavez compared with 66 percent in March.

Some polls surveying Venezuela’s 14 million voters, including one published July 27 by Evans/McDonough Co. and Caracas-based Varianzas Opinion and commissioned by the state oil company, showed Chavez winning the vote.

`Chavez Cares’

Chavez cares about poor people, and the country is advancing,'' said Maria Eugenia Gonzalez, 65, a retired hairdresser, who waited in line for three hours to vote in La Candelaria.I have no doubt he is going to win.’’

Analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings Plc. said in reports published last week the ballot was too close to call.

A 43 percent rise in world oil prices this year helped South America’s third-largest economy rebound from last year’s contraction.

Crude oil for September delivery rose $1.08, or 2.4 percent, to close at $46.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday, the highest since oil began trading in New York in 1983.

Economy Grows

Venezuela’s $85 billion gross domestic product expanded 30 percent in the first quarter after shrinking 9 percent in both 2002 and 2003. A two-month strike that ended in early February 2003 caused factories to shut down across the country and Venezuelan petroleum output to drop as much as 95 percent.

Chavez, who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, responded to the strike by sacking 18,000 of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela’s 33,000 employees and restricting access to dollars.

Venezuela’s benchmark bond due 2027 rose 0.1 cent on the dollar to a six-month high of 91.4 cents on Friday on expectations Chavez will win the vote and keep up interest payments on the nation’s $22 billion foreign debt.

Chavez is the devil we know and will keep things as they are now,'' said Nicholas Field, who manages $750 million of emerging market-debt, including Venezuelan bonds, at WestLB Asset Management in London. The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Wednesday that the ballot may lead to violence. Ten people were killed when shooting broke out during anti-Chavez demonstrations in March. Chavez, who was ousted for two days in a military coup in April 2002, could only lose the recall vote by fraud, Ramirez, the energy minister, said at a press conference on Friday. Unemployment climbed to as high as 20.7 percent in March 2003 compared with 11 percent in 1998, and was at about 16 percent in March this year, government figures show. Caracas had the third- highest murder rate of any city in the Americas between 1999 and 2003, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.This could be the opposition’s last chance to get Chavez out of office,’’ Miguel Diaz, who directs the South American project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview. ``The opposition believes that this could be the last stand for democracy in the country.’’ (Bloomberg)

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