Venezuela expert says Chavez loss may have been larger

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez says he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to support extending his term in office to seven years and giving him greater authority to, among other things, seize private property and businesses. The Venezuelan government says voters in the oil-rich country narrowly rejected Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent.

Jim Roberts, a Latin American expert at the Heritage Foundation, says Venezuelans did not want "true communism" brought to their country and see their property confiscated. Roberts describes the situation in the South American country.

"The store shelves are bare of the necessities -- there's no milk, bread, chicken, meat, vegetable oil. There's violence in the streets -- Caracas has the highest murder rate in the world. And inflation is running 20 percent or more, even seven percent just last month," he says. "People are afraid, and a lot of them viewed this [referendum] as just a step too far, [telling Chavez he] can't do that, can't change the constitution to radically change Venezuelan society."

Roberts also doubts the outcome on the referendum was as close as Chavez would like people to believe. There are reports the actual voting figure against Chavez was more like 60 percent.

"The Venezuelan government owns a company called Smartmatic that makes electronic voting machines. In fact, they've sold them here in the [U.S.]," he points out. "So there have been allegations in previous elections that results have been [influenced] by manipulating those machines."

Roberts says it is fortunate the Chavez regime had little "wiggle room" in terms of how it could manipulate the election. One reason for that, he suggests, is that university students in Venezuela were "really radicalized" against Chavez leading up to the vote. "They were present at every polling place and carefully counting the number of people going in and out," says the Heritage Foundation expert.

Nevertheless, says Roberts, even though Chavez was dealt a "stunning and shocking defeat," he still poses a large threat to the U.S., the region, and his own people.