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Article: CHAVEZ'S REVOLUTION.(political reform in Venezuela under Pres. Hugo Chavez)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- February 11, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Report from Venezuela
Politics in Venezuela, which is usually waged with great passion, was all but forgotten in the weeks after December 15, 1999. On that day, 71 percent of the voters ratified the new constitution devised by the followers of President Hugo Chavez to "refound" the republic. Then, just hours after the last votes were cast, torrential rains along the nation's entire coastal area produced one of the most destructive catastrophes in twentieth-century Latin America, leaving an estimated 30,000 dead and 300,000 homeless.
The convergence of elections of paramount importance, the calamity of the century, and the end of the millennium led some ...