Reply #29: Here's the Guardian's coverage [View All]

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Across the capital in the La Pastora slum of brick shanties, thousands of Chavez supporters rose before dawn to ``reveille'' bugle calls from loudspeakers. Hours later, many were still calmly waiting to vote under a radiant Caribbean sun.

Miguel Rodriguez, a 41-year-old bus driver, helped the get-out-the-vote effort by transporting Chavez supporters to voting centers.

``Chavez is working hard to improve life for the impoverished, giving them opportunities that past governments never even considered,'' Rodriguez said.

Chavez has directed spending from government coffers, beefed up by huge oil revenues, to pay for literacy programs, scholarships and free medical care for Venezuela's majority poor. Thousands of Cuban doctors, dentists and nurses, sent by Chavez's friend Cuban President Fidel Castro, work in poor barrios across this South American nation.

He has often lashed out at the rich, even referring to them as ``devils,'' and he has alienated the United States with his criticism of of Washington's economic and foreign policies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4423897,00.html