CARACAS, Venezuela—With a cry of "long live the revolution," anti-U.S. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election in a landslide after his challenger conceded on Sunday.
Chavez, 52, won a strong mandate to press his self-styled socialist revolution in his next six-year term and forge an anti-U.S. front in Latin America to counter what he calls the superpower's "imperialism."
Critics, including Washington, who regard Chavez as a threat to regional democracy and stability, fear the Cuba ally will be emboldened to buy arms and influence with an oil bonanza from high prices in the heavyweight OPEC member.
The National Electoral Council said Chavez won 61 percent, while Manuel Rosales, a governor of an oil-producing province who united the opposition, trailed with 38 percent after 78 percent of the vote had been counted.
Dressed in his signature red shirt, Chavez celebrated by raising his right fist and singing the national anthem on a balcony at the presidential palace.
Chavez, who has called President George W. Bush a "donkey," "drunkard"—and worse—labeled his U.S. counterpart Satan in a speech dedicating his victory to the ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
"It's another defeat for the devil who wants to dominate the world," he told hundreds of supporters.
Waving red-blue-and-yellow national flags, they chanted "Chavez isn't leaving" as fireworks crackled in the air and soldiers hugged to celebrate the ex-paratrooper's win.
"We recognize they beat us today but we will continue the fight," said Rosales, 53 and a father of 10 who drew his main support from the middle and upper classes in the polarized nation.
Fervent Followers
Chavez, who is called "El Comandante" by his fervent followers, has vowed to use a fresh mandate to scrap presidential term limits and create a single-party that he expects to lead in power for decades.
He also aims to take further state control of the Caribbean country's top industry—oil.
If Sunday's results are confirmed, it would be a better result for Chavez than his previous sweeping election victories in 1998 and 2000.
The fourth leftist to win an election in Latin America in the last five weeks, Chavez appeared set to record one of the most convincing victories in a region that has seen about a dozen elections in the last year.
A folksy politician Chavez is popular among Venezuela's poor majority because of his free spending on clinics and schools of oil income in one of the world's top crude exporters.
While Rosales lacks Chavez's charisma, he ran a disciplined campaign that exposed Venezuelans' anger at rampant crime and at Chavez's increasing control over state institutions like the military and giant state oil company.
Rosales united the traditionally fragmented opposition and showed there is a solid section of the electorate fearful that Chavez will lead them to Cuba style communism.
Backed by hard-line allies in Cuba and Bolivia, Chavez has bolstered ties with more moderate leftists in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Nicaragua to form an anti-U.S. front.
While the United States is Venezuela's top oil customer, Chavez has battled the superpower over everything from trade to OPEC to Iran's nuclear goals since he took office in 1999.
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