When President Hugo Chávez first asked Venezuelans to eliminate presidential term limits in December 2007, they told him no. But on Sunday, as if resigned to the idea that he would keep on asking until he got the answer he wanted, voters said yes. Venezuela's second constitutional referendum in 14 months was approved by a resounding 54% to 45% margin, allowing Chávez to run for a third six-year term in 2012 and perhaps others after that.
Standing on the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace to declare victory Sunday night in his trademark red shirt, the socialist firebrand shouted: "Today we opened wide the gates of the future!" Chávez may well have opened another kind of gate. For much of the latter half of the 20th century, it was the norm in Latin America to limit presidents to one term, a safeguard against the lifetime rule so many caudillos had set up for themselves in the past. As democracy gained a stronger foothold on the continent, many countries voted to allow their leaders a second stint in office.
The elimination of term limits in Venezuela could firmly establish a trend that, according to those who oppose such restrictions, will strengthen democracy by allowing voters to decide how long a popular leader can stick around. Term-limit proponents, however, say Chávez's triumph will only carry the region back to its authoritarian past. "What Venezuelan voters decide is their business," says John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank. "But a threshold does seem to have been crossed."
