Iono, I could see a president taking power, doing the unlimited terms thing, then dissolving the senate and turning it into a military one party stake.

Anyways, is it 2 consecutive terms? Or can say, Bill Clinton run again since he only served two terms and now he is eligible to be president again?

::Edit::

my bad, I found the answer; two full terms is the absolute limit

He has violated the constitution several times but he has a lot of control in other branches of the state, private TV stations will cease to send over the air signals when their concession ends because Chavez doesn't want anything bad to be said about his government, he keeps dividing our people, insulting people that don't agree with him...

Jackson50 if you ever come to Venezuela and you say something against Chavez you will be expelled, the Human Rights Watch guy assigned to South America was expelled because he said some mild stuff about the governement, never before a person from HRW was expellled from a South American country. Lech Walesa wasn't allowed to visit and a spanish deputy was expelled just on friday!

You can say that still this is nothing compared to the other guys I mentioned, but what if someday things get to that point? Do I have to live with that possibility?

Something else, you talk about the recall in 2004, do you know that for that recall to happen the population has to gather more than 6 million signatures? AND THAT THOSE SIGNATURES ARE MADE PUBLIC?? Yeah anyone could know who signed and who didn't, and of course people working for the government feard that if they siogned they could lose their job, which happenned to the people that had the balls to sign

chavez has being the only president in venezuela to see the poor have atleast a little bit to eat, some desicions he has taken have indeed being outratgeous, but the point is that without a lot of people would have died of hunger. i actually hate capitalism and think that all of america if not the world should be socialist.

I won't deny what you say because it is true for the most part, but Chavez is not the answer! People see in him as the savior because he gives them crumbles, something that even previous governments didn't do. But what Chavez has basically done is make the people dependant of the government, they aren't taught to fish, they are given the fishes and that's not the way a nation makes its progress. Giving crumbles to the population is easy when you have a high price oil barrel, now it is at 40$ which very low compared to last year and Chavez will see himself in a lot of trouble to please the people but at least he's able to stay in power as much as he wants if he takes control of the electoral branch.

I'm against Chavez but I'm a democratic person and if people elected him fine, and if you support him I respect that, but unlimited reelections are against the principles of democracy and are a very good way to start a dictatorship.

I would like poeple that if Chavez did something good to them it doesn't mean that anyone else can't do good things too.

I envy the governments of the north of Europe like Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg... Those countreis have a great governments that educate their people and give them dignity, their population are peaceful and they are very progressive...

I understand your concern. As you can attest from this thread and the discussion you and I had, I am not a Chavez apologist. With that being said, I also tend not to overreact to an event. This referendum was not the same power grab as the 2007 referendum. Does it increase the possibility that Chavez may abuse his power? Yes, I think it does. Does it grant him the absolute power the leaders you mentioned enjoy? No, it does not.

Power corrupts. laws like that are in place for peoples protection.

I definitely feel that we need term limits, if not you end up with situations like Porfirio Díaz in mexico where he became far too powerful and began rigging elections to stay in power. with term limits the government can move with the times more easily.

Thats not a bad idea. I guess if the guy (or woman) was a good enough president then he (or she) deserves to get re-elected. If the guy is bad then he simply won't be re-elected.

Well it's ok, even if you supported Chavez you're on your right and I kinda like having these discussions because I'm not a stubborn person and I like when people give me good arguments.

You have a valid point when you say that this election don't give him the power thet the other leaders I mentioned have, but I don't want to be in a "told you so" situation. In that other thread you brought I said that Chavez would try to find a way to mantain the power., that's exactly what just happenned, this is a guy who lke to be friends with governments that violate human rights publicly and there's a quote in Venezuela that says "tell me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are". I'm not against to have good relations with every country even if those countries have a distatorship, but to praise those dictatorships is something that leaves a lot of other people thinking (Chavez gives a lot of praise to Cuban, Iranian and Belarusian governments).

One of the things he could do right now that doesn't escape the laws is remove the licenses that are valid for private TV and radio stations to send over the air broadcasts, don't you think that's very worrisome? I know a lot of private TV station suck and some try to lie to the people but aren't you supposed to choose what you want to watch?

And don't you find dictatorish (I think I just made that word) that foreign people are expelled just because they say something bad about the government? Even people from HRW?

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you, term limits is the only way to assure you a person won't stay in power. No one can assure you that a good person can't get corrupted by power. And even if one person turns to be good for several cosecutive terms, what happens when that person dies or wants out? You'll have to choose a new person without knowing if that person has good values or not and that if he/she would try to stay in power by unlawful means, that's a risk I wouldn't like having.

One of the most dangerous things a person can think is that only one person can be a good president, there are a lot of good people suitable for the job, you can choose people with impeccable politial careers, people with new ideas from the new generations, that's the beauty of term limits