CARACAS - President Hugo Chavez crashed to an unprecedented vote defeat on Monday as Venezuelans rejected his bid to run for re-election indefinitely and win new powers to accelerate his socialist revolution in the OPEC nation.
In a fiercely contested referendum on Sunday, voters said "No" to a raft of reforms that would have scrapped term limits on Chavez's rule, boosted his powers to expropriate private property and allowed him to censor the media in emergencies.
The "No" camp won with about 51 percent of the vote, beating the anti-U.S. president who scored around 49 percent support, election officials said early on Monday.
Celebrations immediately erupted throughout Caracas with caravans of opposition activists cheering, honking horns and waving flags out of car windows. Many said Venezuela had narrowly escaped the imposition of authoritarian rule.
"The reform would have made some frightening changes in our country," said an ecstatic Astrid Badell, 18, pulling a plastic green whistle from her mouth to talk. "It would have practically been a copy of the Cuban constitution, and that would have been a big step backward."
While Chavez remains powerful and popular, it was his first ballot box loss since he first swept into office nine years ago after failing to seize power in a 1992 military coup.
The self-styled revolutionary and close ally of Cuba conceded defeat but said he would "continue in the battle to build socialism".
Chavez also said the reform proposals remained "alive", suggesting he might try to push them through later on.
"This is not a defeat. This is another 'for now'," Chavez said at his presidential palace, repeating a famous quote when as a red-bereted paratrooper he went on national television in 1992 and acknowledged his coup attempt had failed.
Students, rights and business groups, opposition parties, the Roman Catholic Church, former political allies and even his usually loyal ex-wife all lined up against Chavez ahead of the referendum vote.
They accused him of pushing the constitutional reforms to set up a dictatorship.
