Controversy continues after President Chavez says re-election could be for all

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): Controversy continued over President Hugo Chavez' plan to reform the Constitution to allow successive re-election, with the argument shifting to members of the National Assembly. However, the issue was quickly overshadowed by developments between Venezuela and Israel.

Dissident Deputy Luis Tascon warned that Chavez' sudden decision that the right to repeated re-election should be extended not just to the president but all elected offices could pose a threat to the democratic, custom in the country. The plan, he said, could lead to strongholds of support in which either supporters of the president or his opponents could remain in elected office for more than 30 years.

• Other critics echoed the point that indefinite re-election could undermine the custom of power changing hands and alternating between opposing political poles over the years.

Legal observers meanwhile said that broadening the right to repeated re-election to such an extent would involve much more than rewording one Article or clause of the Constitution, and perhaps several items of electoral law as well. Asked about this, Deputy Saul Ortega said that all the changes could be written into one constitutional Article to be submitted to a referendum.