Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday he expects his country will vote in late February on a constitutional amendment letting him stay in office as long as he keeps winning elections.
“In February, at the end of February, I think we should be ready for the referendum ... on the constitutional amendment,” Chavez said during a televised speech.
Chavez lost a similar bid to amend the Constitution last year and will have to leave office in 2013 if he loses the upcoming vote.
He can propose the amendment referendum to the electoral authority either by collecting some 2.5 million signatures supporting it or through a request backed by 30 percent of Congress, dominated by Chavez allies.
Chavez said on Tuesday he has not yet decided which mechanism he will use.
The electoral authority would have to call the referendum 30 days after receiving the proposal.
Chavez launched his referendum campaign this week after regional elections last month in which opposition leaders won key states and the capital of Caracas, although Chavez allies swept most municipalities.
Meanwhile, Russian warships have ended exercises with the navy in Moscow’s first such Caribbean deployment since the Cold War.
Russian TV on Tuesday showed images of a Venezuelan-operated Sukhoi fighter jet swooping low over Russian warships in a simulated air attack.
The exercises concluded with a fireworks display. They had included an air defense exercise and joint actions to spot, pursue and detain an intruding vessel, Russian navy spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo said.
The joint naval exercises featured helicopters dropping special forces soldiers onto a ship as if it had been “seized by terrorists,” a report on state-run Rossiya television said.
The TV report said the Russian squadron left the area.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
RSS