VENEZUELA: Allies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez are poised to take overwhelming control of the legislature following a boycott call of last weekend's elections by some of the country's strongest opposition.
They complained that the country's electoral council was comprised of Chavez supporters and alleged that touch-screen voting machines and the fingerprint identification system used at the polls would lead to breaches in voter confidentially, even after the government agreed to not use the fingerprinting system.
Though final results had not yet been announced, allies of Mr Chavez said they easily captured a two-thirds majority, which would be needed to change the constitution and possibly permit the president to run for a third consecutive six-year term in 2012 without a referendum. He has already announced plans to run for re-election next year.
Mr Chavez downplayed the boycott, which was formally observed by about 10 per cent of the more than 5,500 candidates vying for the 167 national assembly seats.
The election proceeded without incident in Caracas, but a small blast damaged an oil pipeline in the west of the country that delivers hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily to a large refinery. On Friday, three small bombs exploded in the capital, injuring three people.
The EU sent 160 observers to monitor the elections and another 50 were sent by the Organisation of American States, which said last week that "important advances" had been instituted to encourage clean elections.
Mr Chavez was elected president in 1998 and has emerged as President George Bush's most vocal critic in Latin America.
As the world's fifth-largest oil supplier, his government has used windfall profits from higher energy prices to fund social programmes for the poor that have helped boost his approval rating to 68 per cent, according to an October survey.