- Title: VENEZUELA: Vote triumph a "present" for sick Hugo Chavez.
- Date: 17th December 2012
- Summary: CARACAS, VENEZUELA (DECEMBER 17, 2012) (REUTERS) GENERAL VIEW OF CARACAS PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH THE STREETS VARIOUS OF NEWSPAPER HEADLINES VARIOUS OF PEOPLE READING NEWSPAPERS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CARACAS RESIDENT, ALFREDO LOPEZ, SAYING: "The people heeded to the process and to the call made by the President for people to vote, for everyone to go to the polls." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE READING NEWSPAPERS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CARACAS RESIDENT, ERICSON ROSENDO, SAYING: "I have never been a supporter of the President (referring to President Hugo Chavez) but I hope he gets better. I didn't think that it was appropriate for the President to be over there (in Cuba) while the elections were underway here. I believe the elections should have been postponed until he was back." VARIOUS OF STREET SCENES
- Embargoed: 1st January 2013 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Cuba
- City:
- Country: Cuba
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA5MCMJI5X9RA02UJGY1BNR4BQC
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- Story Text: Hugo Chavez's supporters dedicated their sweeping regional election win to the absent Venezuelan president and turned attention back on Monday (December 17) to his fight to recover from cancer surgery in Cuba.
Helped by sympathy for Chavez, the ruling Socialist Party swept the board in Sunday's vote, winning 20 out of 23 state governorships in the South American OPEC nation.
"The people heeded to the process and to the call made by the President for people to vote, for everyone to go to the polls," Caracas resident, Alfredo Lopez, said.
However, not everyone agreed.
"I have never been a supporter of the President (referring to President Hugo Chavez) but I hope he gets better. I didn't think that it was appropriate for the President to be over there (in Cuba) while the elections were underway here. I believe the elections should have been postponed until he was back," Ericson Rosendo said.
Government candidates cut the opposition's previous control of seven states to just three - but there was some compensation for the anti-Chavez bloc in its standard-bearer Henrique Capriles' retention of Miranda governorship.
That left Capriles, a 40-year-old career politician and lawyer by training, as the opposition's clear candidate-in-waiting should Chavez's condition spark a new election.
In office since 1999, Chavez is due to start a new term on Jan. 10 after beating Capriles in October's presidential vote.
But he has named a successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, in case he is incapacitated, a scenario that would trigger a new poll within 30 days in the nation of 29 million people.
Sunday's election illustrated the continuing popularity of Chavez who is adored by many poor Venezuelans for his humble roots and oil-fuelled welfare programs, though denounced as a dangerous autocrat by opponents. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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