December 16, 1999
Web posted at: 1:20 a.m. EST (0620 GMT)

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CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelans have overwhelmingly approved a new constitution that eliminates the Senate, vastly increases the power of President Hugo Chavez and changes the country's official name to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

In a nationally televised speech after the initial results were announced, Chavez said, "The birth has occurred. A new republic has been born."

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With 82 percent of the vote counted Wednesday, results showed 71 percent in favor of the new constitution and 29 percent against it.

Initial results had the rate of voter abstentions as high as 54 percent. Polling was hampered by torrential downpours that killed at least 37 people and left 10,500 homeless.

The constitution, Venezuela's 26th, makes the name change -- from the Republic of Venezuela -- in honor of South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar.

The constitution extends presidential terms from five to six years and eliminates the current ban on immediate re-election. With Chavez in power for nearly a year already, he now has the chance to rule for another 12 years.

In his address, Chavez said, "Unfortunately, the birth has been with pain," a reference to the devastation caused by the rains. "Brothers, today there is no reason to celebrate," he said.

Elections for legislators, state governors and mayors are set to take place within the next three months to comply with the new charter. Chavez said presidential elections would likely be called around March.

One immediate effect of the "yes" vote to the 350-article charter is the closure of the opposition-controlled congress.

The 131-member Constitutional Assembly, with a mandate until February 3, will assume its functions until then and select a legislative commission to continue afterward until the election of the new single-chamber National Assembly.

The Constitutional Assembly is dominated by Chavez's supporters. The charter it produced expands the rights of minorities and seeks to clean up corrupt courts and break the stranglehold of political parties that many Venezuelans blame for squandering the Western Hemisphere's largest oil reserves.

It also sharply reduces civilian control of the army and increases the state's role in managing the economy.

The constitution raises the status of women and indigenous peoples, reduces the powers of states and municipalities, reverses the current ban on soldiers being allowed to vote, and requires the state to guarantee social security benefits to all workers. Critics say the government can ill afford the latter provision.

The new charter also includes a controversial clause calling for "truthful information" in the media, which, some charge, is a recipe for censorship.

Chavez had said a "no" vote on the referendum would lead to chaos and even civil war in a country mired in its deepest recession on record.

The U.N.'s International Labor Organization reports that Venezuela and Colombia have the two worst performing Latin American economies.

But critics say that Chavez, in his efforts to root out corruption and rule in favor of the poor, is trampling the law and creating a state at odds with the demands of modernity.

"We are moving toward an economy that is less and less productive, absolute rigidity in the labor market, an administrative centralism that breaks with the trend of recent years," said Alberto Franceschi, one of only six opposition delegates to the constitutional assembly.

Chavez, 45, staged a failed military coup attempt eight years ago. He has led the country for 10 eventful months and has vowed to rebuild the world's third-largest oil exporter almost from scratch.

He has been accused of dividing the South American nation through incendiary rhetoric, but he says he is merely providing an escape for deep popular frustrations.

Chavez urged the millions of poor who elected him in a landslide a year ago to "go to battle" and defeat "the forces of evil."

Donning combat fatigues to campaign for a "yes" vote, he compared opponents to "a truckload of squealing pigs," labeled businessmen members of a "rancid oligarchy," and called Roman Catholic Church officials "degenerate priests."

"What the president wants is to annihilate his adversaries, reduce them to nothing," said Venezuela's former apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Rosalio Castillo, who earlier in the week compared Chavez's tactics to those of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.