UPDATE: Check that! At this hour, (06:00 gmt) the BBC is reporting Hugo Chavez admitting defeat in a narrowly contested referendum fight that saw the No vote delivering Chavez his first electoral defeat since coming to power.
Citing exit polls placing Chavez's Si! side of the vote between six and
eight percentage points ahead, though claiming "low" turnouts, a fact contested by
other news reports, Saul Hudson and Ana Isabel Martinez of
Reuters say, if confirmed, the victory would be the most narrow in
the former army colonel's spectacular political career.
Describing the
president as "the leftist," Reuters reportage is in line with
most of the scaremongering their corporate colleagues have published. Prior to today's
vote foreign press coverage has stressed just one of the items slated on the referendum for change, the removal of the two-term limit placed on the presidency.
While there are no term limits on the leadership in Britian, Canada, or
other Commonwealth parliamentary governments, both British Broadcast
and Canadian Broadcast Corporation news reports have stressed the
removal of the limits, equating it with an attempt by Chavez to seize unlimited
and perpetual power over the presidency.
Martinez and Hudson
maintain Chavez is "a man who wants to rule [Venezuela] for life and
turn the major oil exporter into a socialist state."
Late last week, eminent Latin America scholar, Dr. James Petras
reported on leaked CIA documents outlining Washington's strategy to
first finance the opposition with more than 8 million American dollars,
mainly paid to student groups at elite Universities, and in the event
of defeat, to discredit the legitimacy of the vote.
This Petras revealed
they planned to do using Venezuela's concentrated corporate media, in
concert with loyal North American and British corporate and state run
media like the BBC and CBC.
Already, Reuters reports some doubts being expressed over the vote, quoting New Time party member, Delsa Solorzano, saying;
"In my opinion, these are not the (real) numbers. The government is wrong."
Why those number are "wrong" neither Reuters nor Solorzano say.
The Reuters team goes on to quote the opinions of actor, Elias Martinez who says in the oppostion, El Nacional newspaper;
"If they [the voting citizens of Venezuala] approve this reform, as of
midnight tonight we have turned into a communist country. I'm convinced
of that."
It looks at this hour the people have endorsed the Si! position; so it
will only be a matter of hours now to see if Martinez's prediction
comes true, and the world will see the first communist state created
in more than fifty years.
In the meanwhile, interest lies in just how the American and British media will respond to the victory.
Reuters report
source here.
Reuters is reporting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is heading towards victory in the government reform referendum he initiated. 
