Venezuelan Chavez Wins Re-Election

President Hugo Chavez won re-election by a wide margin Sunday, according to official results, giving him another six years to solidify his self-styled social revolution and further his global crusade against U.S. influence.

With 78 percent of voting stations reporting, Chavez had 61 percent to 38 percent for challenger Manuel Rosales, said Tibisay Lucena, head of the country's elections council.

Chavez had nearly 6 million votes versus 3.7 million for Rosales. Turnout was 62 percent, according to an official bulletin, making the lead insurmountable.

Minutes after the results were announced, Chavez appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace singing the national anthem.

"Long live the socialist revolution! Destiny has been written," Chavez shouted with abandon to thousands of flag-waving supporters under a pouring rain.

Chavez said he would try now to deepen a revolution that has spread Venezuela's oil wealth among the country's poor.

"No one should fear socialism," Chavez proclaimed. "Socialism is human. Socialism is love."

Even before polls closed, Chavez supporters celebrated in the streets, setting off fireworks and cruising the capital of Caracas honking horns and shouting "Chavez isn't going anywhere!"

A top Rosales adviser, Teodoro Petkoff, said early Sunday evening that the voting "was carried out in a satisfactory manner." He said some irregularities had occurred but most were resolved. Another member of the Rosales camp had accused pro-Chavez soldiers of reopening closed polling stations and busing voters to them.

The vote was monitored by observers from the European Union, the Carter Center and the Organization of American States.

Since he first won office in 1998, Chavez has increasingly dominated all branches of government and his allies now control congress, state offices and the judiciary. He has called U.S. President George W. Bush the devil, allied himself with Iran and influenced elections across the region.

"Chavez' victory sends a message, along with the other recently-elected left-leaning governments in the region, that Washington-bashing plays well in Latin America," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, "and that, fair or not, the view in the region is that the Bush administration is not paying enough attention to its neighbors to the South."

Chavez also has used Venezuela's oil wealth to his political advantage. He has channeled oil profits toward multibillion-dollar programs for the poor including subsidized food, free university education and cash benefits for single mothers. He has helped allies from Cuba to Bolivia with oil and petrodollars.

Rosales, a cattle rancher and governor of western Zulia state who stepped down temporarily to run against Chavez, has rebuilt the opposition from its referendum defeat.

"During the campaign, Rosales accused Chavez of edging Venezuela toward one-man rule. He focused on issues such as rampant crime and corruption, widely seen as Chavez's main vulnerabilities.

Chavez supporters jarred voters awake hours before dawn in Caracas with recordings of reveille blaring from truck-mounted loudspeakers.

We're here to support our president, who has helped us so much," said Jose Domingo Izaguirre, a factory worker who waited hours to vote. His family recently moved into new government housing.

Rosales supporters accused Chavez of deepening class divisions with searing rhetoric demonizing his opponents.

Alicia Primera, a 54-year-old housewife, was among voters so passionate about the choice that they camped out overnight in voting queues.

"I voted for Chavez previously. I cried for him," Primera said. "Now I'm crying for him to leave. He's sown a lot of hate with his verbiage."

The campaign was hostile, with Chavez calling Rosales a pawn of Washington and Rosales saying he was on the alert for fraud. Rosales' campaign had endorsed the electronic voting system as trustworthy — as long as no attempts were made to thwart it.

More than 125,000 soldiers and reservists were deployed to safeguard the balloting.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus stressed "the importance of a free, fair and transparent process."

Conflict and ambition have marked the rise of Chavez, 52, from a boy selling homemade sweets in a dusty backwater to a failed coup commander in 1992 and now a leader who could set the tone of Latin American politics for years to come.

Constitutional reforms he oversaw in 1999 triggered new elections the following year that he easily won. Loyalists helped him survive a 2002 coup, a subsequent general strike and a 2004 recall referendum.

Chavez says he would convene a commission upon re-election to propose constitutional reforms, likely including an end to presidential term limits. Current law prevents him from running again in 2012.

Some Rosales supporters worry that a re-elected Chavez would turn more radical. Chavez insists he is a democrat and will continue to respect private property — though he has boosted state control over the oil industry and has said he might nationalize utilities. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and soaring oil prices have made it South America's fastest growing economy.

Chavez has pledged at least $1.1 billion in loans and financial aid to Latin American countries in the past two years, and billions more in bond bailouts for friendly governments as well as generously financed oil deals. But the largesse has proved a weakness at home, with polls suggesting many Venezuelans believe the aid impedes efforts to address the country's own problems.

Chavez, who says Fidel Castro is like a father to him, has built increasingly close ties with Cuba, sending the island oil while thousands of Cuban doctors treat Venezuela's poor for free.