WORLD> America
Chavez will 'pack bags' if re-election effort fails
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-25 07:46

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday he would leave office when his current term ends if voters reject a proposal that would allow him to run for re-election indefinitely.

Venezuela's National Assembly, controlled by Chavez supporters, last week approved holding a referendum on amending the constitution to allow indefinite presidential re-elections. Voters are likely to cast ballots on the issue in mid-February.

"In the supposed case that we would lose" the referendum, Chavez said in statements broadcast on Venezuelan television, "I would begin to pack my bags, count my remaining months and years, and work intensely to prepare for ... whoever comes after me."

If the political opposition "obtains a victory, I would be the first to come out here to recognize it," he said.

Currently Venezuelan presidents can only run for re-election once, at the end of their six-year term in office.

Chavez, first elected president in 1998, was re-elected in 2006 for a term that ends in February 2013. Venezuela's constitution was changed in late 1999, allowing Chavez to run for an additional re-election.

On Sunday, the leftist leader predicted in his weekly television and radio address that half of the country's 17 million registered voters would back him.

"Two years ago (in the last presidential elections), 7.3 million voters voted for me. I don't expect any less than that. We are going toward 10 million (votes)," he said.

The Venezuelan leader still enjoys approval ratings of over 50 percent, and has vowed to be a contender in the 2012 presidential election if the constitutional amendment is passed.

But an earlier attempt by Chavez to rewrite the constitution so he could stay in power was defeated in a referendum in late 2007.