VENEZUEALAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ RE-ELECTED............

In a major challenge to his fourteen years of governing Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, a steadfast Socialist, was re-elected on Sunday by a nearly ten percent margin.  President Chavez won a fresh, six year term after having served as President of Venezuela since 1999.  Chavez facing the strongest electoral challenge in his thirteen years, faced the more moderate Henrique Capriles Radonski, the charismatic leader of the Latin American Left Party, who had pledged not to change the socialist reforms enacted by President Chavez, but to make them more efficient.  Capriles Radonski also campaigned against the corruption in Venezuela's public sector.  With ninety percent of the vote counted Chavez has 7.4 million votes, 54.42%;  Capriles Radonski with 6.1 million votes, 44.62 %.  The National Electoral Council announced that nearly 81% of Venezuelans eligible to vote turned out to cast ballots in this Presidential Election.   Venezuela, with its oil rich resources which President Chavez has tapped into extensively during his tenure, to further Housing, Education, and Health, initiatives he has vowed to continue, along with doing more to address Corruption and Government Bureaucracy reform.  Personally contending with bouts of cancer, raises questions about how effectively he will continue to govern as President, as well as who among the ten prospective successors within the Socialist leadership of Venezuela will emerge when the time comes, are uncertainties at this point, as is whether the defeat of the moderate alternative leadership will thwart its future, or with a 40 year old standardbearer will become an even more viable choice for governing in the future.  The United States, often at odds with the Chavez Government, is Venezuela's largest trading partner and Venezuela is the fourth largest exporter of Oil to the United States............Fr.  Troy