Certainly the free world and the one that is not free because of arbitrary governments, was anxiously awaiting the news about the referendum held on Sunday, December 2, 2007, in Venezuela to decide the approval or not of a constitutional and institutional reform intensely, threateningly sponsored by Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela until 2013. As everyone knows, Chávez proposal was rejected by the “NO” vote of 51% of the voters.
No one really knows, and there are serious doubts, about what happened with the final figures after 9 p.m. on Sunday when a sort of cloud of mystery surrounded what was taking place without any official report on the referendum. Likewise, it is said that in private meetings between the top military leaders of Venezuela and President Chávez, the ruler was pressured by the armed forces into accepting defeat, although there are still strong doubts about the difference in votes between the “YES” and the “NO”. Anyway, taking into consideration all the enormous resources of the State that Chávez had working for him, the difference in votes, if the official figures are legitimate, says much about the democratic tenaciousness of the majority of the Venezuelan people who, without comparable resources, without official leaders, succeeded in defeating the attempt to create a totalitarian socialist state in Bolívar’s motherland.
As everyone knows, since a year ago Hugo Chávez has exceptional faculties, which are not normal in the life of a democratic republic, to rule without changing the 69 articles of the Constitution which he tried to do on December 2nd. Naturally, the logical thing would be – if logic still prevails – that he stops challenging the Venezuelan people using these inordinate, albeit legal, faculties that he has or seems to have.
The people of Venezuela deserve congratulations for such a resounding victory set into motion by the students, brilliant young men and women who on TV and radio appearances expressed solid arguments in defense of the political dignity of the people and the democratic institutions of the Republic. Worthy of mention are citizens of other generations, among them General Baduel, who openly expressed their opposition to the reforms.
