The amendment won the support of 54.36 percent of the population: 6,003,594 votes. The “No” vote received 5,040,082 votes, i.e. 45.63 percent. The abstention was about 33 percent. The bulletin was issued with 94 percent of the votes counted.
At 9:35 PM, the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, first issued the official bulletin of the CNE, according to which “Yes” won approximately 6,003,594 votes, i.e. 54.36 percent. “No” received 5,040,082 votes, i.e. 45.63 percent.
The results — that’s right — approve the proposed constitutional amendment allowing governors, mayors, deputies, and the president to run for re-election more than twice.
In total, there were 199,041 invalid ballots and 11,242,717 votes were counted. The abstention was 32.95 percent. The results of this bulletin were released with 94.2 percent of the certified election returns processed, with 2,252 certified election returns still to be processed.
The question was as follows:
“Do you approve the amendment of Articles 160, 162, 174, 192, and 230 of the Constitution of the Republic, made by the National Assembly, which extends the political rights of the people, with the aim of allowing any citizen holding an elected office to stand as candidate for the same office, for the constitutionally set period, with his or her possible election to be determined, exclusively, by the popular vote?”
The approval puts into effect the amendment of the articles in question; the amended articles read as follows:
- Article 160. Governors: . . . The Governor is elected for a term of four years by a majority vote. The Governor may be reelected.
- Article 162. Regional Deputies: . . . State legislators may be reelected.
- Article 174. Mayors: . . . The Mayor is elected for a term of four years by a majority vote and may be reelected.
- Article 192. National Deputies: . . . Deputies of the National Assembly remain in office for five years and may be reelected.
- Article 230. President of the Republic: The presidential term is six years. The President of the Republic may be reelected.
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The original article
“¡Aprobada la enmienda con casi un millón de votos de ventaja!” was first published by YVKE Mundial on 15 February 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).