Carter confirms Chavez survives vote

CARACAS - Former President Jimmy Carter, in Caracas to help monitor a referendum on President Hugo Chavez, said Monday returns show an effort to recall Chavez failed.

His monitors conducted a quick count at polling sites and the results were "almost exactly the same as the results" provided earlier by the National Electoral Council, Carter said at a news conference.

The council said 58 percent voted Sunday against removing Chavez from office -- thereby allowing him to complete the remaining two years of his term.


Chavez waves from the balcony of the

Presidential Palace in Caracas on Monday.

As preliminary figures were coming in, a triumphant Chavez appeared on the balcony of his president palace before thousands of supporters waving flags and cheering below.

"Long live the constitution," he said. "Long live the Venezuelan people. What a great victory."

Before Carter's announcement, the opposition insisted the results were a fraud.

"We will count the votes again and we will formalize before the international bodies a very complete petition to audit all machines, to count every single paper ballot and to physically examine the elements that took part of this electoral process," said Henry Ramos Allup, the leader of the opposition coalition.

"An incredible fraud has taken place."

Meanwhile, eight people, including a 61-year-old woman, were wounded in a shooting during an opposition political protest in Caracas Monday afternoon, Caracas Police Chief Lázaro Forero said.

An earlier report from the mayor's office said one of the victims had died, but Forero said later that they were all still alive.

Demonstrators had gathered in Altamira Square to protest the results of Sunday's referendum.

Witnesses claim three gunmen who carried pro-Chavez signs opened fire on the anti-Chavez demonstrators. No arrests have been made.

The election referendum drew record numbers of Venezuelans to the polls.

Polling hours were extended twice Sunday to accommodate voters -- first from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. EDT, then until midnight as thousands lined up outside polling places.

Some voters waited as long as 10 hours before being able to cast a ballot, and independent observers said the outcome was too close to call.

Gunmen presumed to be supporters of President Hugo Chavez

open fire on an opposition rally in Caracas. (Reuters)

Chavez, a former army officer, led a 1992 coup attempt before being elected president in 1998 with overwhelming support of the country's poor. Many in the middle and upper classes call him a budding tyrant.

The country has been wracked by anti-Chavez demonstrations for more than a year. Opponents managed to collect enough signatures to force a recall vote in June.

For Chavez to have been recalled, at least 3.76 million Venezuelans would have had to vote to remove him -- the same number of votes the former paratrooper won in 2000, when he was re-elected to a six-year term.

Opponents collected 2.4 million signatures to force the recall vote.

Chavez has used the recent rise in oil prices to offer a welter of new social services to the poor majority in the nation, which is the world's fifth-largest exporter of oil. Those services include education, health care and subsidized food.

Opponents accuse him of steering Venezuela toward communism and of riding roughshod over the nation's democratic institutions.

He was ousted in a 2002 coup that his supporters blamed on the United States -- an allegation Washington denies -- but he returned to power within days when the opposition collapsed.

CNN Correspondent Lucia Newman contributed to this report.