During a news conference in Venezuela, ahead of today’s elections, President Hugo Chavez cited the achievements of the “people’s revolution”, such as decreased unemployment, less poverty, and petroleum-induced growth to the economy. He even quoted major foreign banks who have admitted that the most dangerous scenario to occur in Venezuela would be for Chavez to lose the election.

Chavez said that he would immediately convene a special commission to propose constitutional reforms which would be approved by voters upon his re-election. One constitutional edit is likely to be the elimination of presidential term limits which keep Chavez from running again in 2012. However, he insisted that the proposal to do away with presidential term limits was democracy and not dictatorship by citing that presidents of France have served long terms.

Chavez has taken advantage of Venezuela’s oil wealth to lavish the poor with programs that provide everything from subsidized food to free health care and education. And he persistently accuses the “imperialist” U.S. government of trying to topple him, on Thursday saying the ‘U.S. Empire’ had done more damage to Latin America than colonial Spain.

He urged his enemies to respect the result of the vote, calling an upset impossible and suggesting that some opposition activists are planning post-election violence. “There are two options here - ours and that of the U.S. Empire and its flunkeys here, who were the ones who staged the coup,” Chavez said, referring to a two-day coup in 2002. Chavez was returned to power by street protests and loyalists in the military.

Chavez, who enjoys a huge lead in the polls over his American-backed opponent Rosales, also revealed during the news conference that authorities had foiled a planned sniper attack against Rosales. Chavez said that the authorities had seized a sniper rifle from a vehicle and that a military officer had been arrested for meeting with fellow civilian plotters. He offered no further details. A high-ranking military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that a naval officer was under investigation. Chavez said the “fascist” militants were planning on using the rifle to shoot Manuel Rosales during a speech, and displace the blame onto the government. “It was to say that Chavez sent them to kill him, and generate chaos,” the president told reporters.

Rosales’ campaign said it had no knowledge of the assassination plot. Timoteao Zambrano, one of Rosales’ campaign managers, said the plot was a “smoke screen” created by Chavez. He then spoke very suspiciously by saying, “If something were to happen to our candidate, the government would be responsible.”

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