11-3-07, 11:30 pm

CARACAS, December 3.—The vote on the constitutional referendum yesterday in Venezuela demonstrated the ethics of the Bolivarian Revolution, affirmed President Hugo Chávez in a press conference after the referendum was narrowly defeated.

“For now, we were not able to do it,” Chávez stated, while stressing that the country’s institutional nature was demonstrated. “That points the way for the opposition to stop its leaps into the void and the road of destabilization and violence,” he noted.

“We are made for a long battle,” said the leader early Monday morning after the result was announced by Tibisay Lucena, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

The reform of 69 Constitutional articles and 15 provisional regulations were presented in two blocs. The CNE president stated that 50.7% of electors voted “No” and 49.29% voted “Yes” for the first group of laws, while the second group obtained 51.05% against and 48.94% for the reforms.

“The fact that 49% voted for the socialist project is a great political leap forward and we are keeping up the battle by building socialism within the framework allowed us by the Constitution,” Chávez emphasized. “This program is still alive and we shall follow it by working to attain maximum social inclusion and equality.”

The president commented on the abstention rate of 44.11% and observed that if work had been undertaken with the three million people who voted for him last year in the presidential elections and did not go to the polling stations this year, the result would have been a different one.

“We complied with our Constitution, and with our conscience. We would not in any way have accepted a pyrrhic victory,” he affirmed.

“We are going to prolong, extend and deepen the perspective and content of the process of building a socialist Venezuela in order to increase – as far as possible – the strategic speed of change of a revolution in the process of maturing,” he stated.

Translated by Granma International