The Miami Herald - By Tyler Bridges and Phil Gunson, The Miami Herald CARACAS -- Venezuelan voters began lining up early outside polling stations Sunday as voting began for a referendum on radical constitutional changes that represents President Hugo Chavez's toughest electoral test in nearly a decade.
Most polls opened at 6 a.m. (5 a.m. EST) and are supposed to close at 4:00 p.m. Venezuelan time.
Information Minister Willian Lara said he was receiving reports of a "massive turnout" but some voters said the turnout appeared to be low. Polls have shown that a high abstention rate would favor the YES vote.
There are a lot less people here than in the presidential elections last year," said Boutureira, 43. "I'm worried."
Even in traditionally pro-Chavez parts of Caracas, such as the western districts of El Valle and Caricuao, reports spoke of a very light turnout, suggesting that the government's election machinery might not be working as well as it has in the past.
In the largely anti-Chavez Caracas municipality of Baruta, many polling stations opened late, according to Mayor Henrique Capriles. He told Union Radio that the delay was on average an hour or more.
At the Fray Lucas Amigo school, in the middle-class Colinas de Bello Monte district, one line of well over 100 voters snaked around the block as officials reported a faulty printer.
I've been waiting since 5:15 a.m. (three hours),"said taxi-driver Andres Moratti, 33. "And this line is not moving."
People get worried and start to leave," Alicia Ojeda, an opposition observer, told officials from the National Electoral Council. "And we don't want to lose those votes."
But at the nearby Concordia school there were no lines and voters reported that everything was working well.
I arrived just ten minutes ago," said physician Ivonne Boutureira, 43, as she waited to vote. Five minutes later, she had completed the process.
Most pre-election surveys gave the anti-Chavez NO side an advantage, but analysts said the referendum was too close to call given Chavez's uninterrupted string of electoral victories since first winning the presidency in 1998.
During his nine years in office, Chavez has steadily buttressed Venezuela's alliance with Cuba and sharpened his clash with the United States, even though Venezuela is the fourth biggest supplier of imported oil to the U.S.
The referendum is a YES or NO vote on 69 proposed changes to the Constitution.
Among the most hotly debated changes are those that would allow him to seek re-election endlessly -- he said Friday that he wants to remain president until 2050, when he would be 95 -- would officially declare Venezuela a "Socialist" nation and give Chavez spending control over the country's $30 billion in foreign reserves.
Since becoming president, Chavez has said he wants to direct more of Venezuela's oil revenues to the poor, and the proposed amendments would continue that. Proposed changes would reduce the work week to 36 hours, allow maids, taxi drivers and other members of the informal economy begin collecting pensions and strengthen anti-discrimination laws.
Opponents of the referendum include the Catholic Church hierarchy, the country's biggest business group, human rights groups, Chavez's ex-wife Marisabel Rodriguez and former Gen. Raul Isaias Baduel, who was Chavez's defense minister until mid-year.
Chavez turned up the volume in the final days of the campaign, attacking Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as a "lackey" of the United States, threatening to expel CNN reporters from Venezuela, demanding that King Juan Carlos of Spain apologize to him for a recent outburst in which the Spaniard told Chavez to "shut up" and threatening to expel two big Spanish banks from Venezuela.
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