Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tightened his grip on power late on Sunday after his party swept legislative elections marked by anemic voter turnout and mostly boycotted by the opposition, the ruling party leader announced.
The election hands Chavez's legislative allies more than the two-thirds majority they need in the 167-seat one-chamber National Assembly to enable Chavez to end presidential term limits and seek re-election next year.
William Lara, who heads Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement, told reporters that the ruling coalition had won all 167 seats. He said his party will control 114 seats as a result of the vote, with the rest also going to parties that support the leftist-populist president.
Lara insisted that after Jan. 5, when the new legislature is inaugurated, Venezuela will still have a "multi-party National Assembly, which will include various civic groups and independent deputies."
Low turnout
But only 25 percent of about 12 million registered voters showed up as most of Venezuela's opposition parties, including Democratic Action and COPEI -- which for decades alternated in high office -- stayed away from the polls, charging lack of transparency, according to election officials.
Jorge Rodriguez, president of the National Electoral Council, explained the low turnout as due to "torrential rains that have prevented voters from getting to polling places."
But members of opposition parties charged that the low turnout undercut the vote's legitimacy.
Henry Ramos Allup, who leads the Democratic Action party, said that while the new legislature was legal, "it is not legitimate because it is a body in which the whole Venezuelan population is not represented."
Opposition forces complained this week that electronic voting machines in the vote can record fingerprints, allowing authorities to know how a person voted, though election officials agreed to switch the feature off.
Stacked
They also charged that the electoral council is stacked with Chavez supporters.
But Rodriguez assured that "the voting went ahead with absolute normality."
"We can say that Venezuelans have expressed their opinion today as established by the Constitution," he added.
Hundreds of foreign election monitors from the EU and the Organization of American States declared the vote legitimate.
However, the opposition group Sumate has alleged widespread irregularities.
"We have received complaints from all parts of the country," said Alejandro Plaz, a spokesman for the organization.
Voting has not been mandatory in the country since 1999.
"Venezuela is speaking with its silence," said Julio Borges, a prominent opposition member.
Venezuela's opposition for years has failed in repeated attempts to oust Chavez, an elected former paratroop colonel and close ally of Cuba's leader Fidel Castro.
"The old parties are already dead but are refusing to die," Chavez said on Sunday after casting his ballot in a poor Caracas neighborhood.
Chavez earlier charged the opposition with seeking to lead Venezuela "down a violent path," and called its boycott part of a "subversive" US-inspired plot aimed at denying him a new six-year term in the presidential election next December.
The election was marked by some reports of violence. Early Sunday, a top military official said that an oil pipeline was set ablaze at two points.
"Apparently it is sabotage," said Wilfredo Silva, head of the armed forces unified command.
Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told state television that the fires were under control, and dismissed suggestions that it would result in a fuel shortage.
Assistance
The pipeline moves crude oil to a massive refining complex on Lake Maracaibo, Ramirez said.
Chavez, who heads Latin America's only OPEC member, has courted nations across the Caribbean with cut-rate oil and offered cash-strapped Argentina financial assistance.
He led a coup attempt in 1992, was elected president in 1998, reelected in 2000, survived a coup in 2002 and fought a recall referendum last year.
Huge spending on welfare and health, paid for with Venezuela's oil wealth, have sustained his strong support among many Venezuelans.
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