By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 3 –– President Hugo Chavez appears to have won a significant political victory as Venezuelans ignored threats of an international
boycott and voted today to remove leaders of the country's largest labor organization, one of the few remaining pockets of opposition to Chavez's "democratic
revolution."

Although final results may not be known for days, the National Electoral Council said nearly 65 percent voted in favor of the ballot issue, which called for leaders of
the 1.7 million-member Venezuelan Workers' Confederation to be suspended pending elections to replace them within six months. Only about 22 percent of eligible
voters cast ballots.

Union leaders, who along with the news media and the Roman Catholic Church have represented Chavez's chief opposition, pledged not to leave their posts
regardless of the vote results. International labor groups have joined Chavez critics here in condemning the vote as illegal government intervention in union affairs,
promising a worldwide public relations campaign against Venezuela that could include a boycott of its exports.

Chavez dismissed those threats as "squealing by a truckload of pigs on their way to slaughter." He appealed to Venezuela's poor majority by portraying the labor
leaders as relics of the corrupt two-party system that dominated politics here since the end of military dictatorship 42 years ago. Chavez has all but destroyed those
parties since taking office in February of last year.

"I voted for change because right now they have a monopoly on the labor force," said Javier Romero, 31, a taxi driver who pays 5 percent of his monthly salary to
the union, known by its initials in Spanish as the CTV. "This is the only way to change it. They have been in charge for so long and done nothing to make our lives
better."

Today's vote also included balloting for more than 5,500 local government offices and marked the final phase of a process that began with Chavez's election in
December 1998. Since then, Venezuelans have gone to the polls five times to endorse his leadership and reform program through national referendums--including
one that ratified a new constitution concentrating more political and economic power in the presidency.

The new constitution called for elections to fill all the country's elected offices, from parish council to president. The local offices on today's ballot, which drew more
than 72,000 candidates, represented the last step in that process. Preliminary returns indicated that Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement won a majority of those
municipal posts.

"We put our last hopes in these people," said Richard Garcia, a high school teacher who voted for Chavez candidates for mayor and the municipal council of Petare,
a poor district of Caracas, the capital. "But if they don't do anything this time, come the next elections I will vote entirely for another party."

The labor issue was a late addition to the ballot and its most controversial element. It arose after a five-day strike by oil workers in October that ended in government
pay concessions--Chavez's first high-profile political defeat. His government has since created its own union, the Bolivarian Workers' Force, in the hope it will
eventually replace the CTV. Opposition candidate Francisco Arias Cardenas, who was defeated by Chavez for the presidency in July, publicly ripped up his ballot
today and called on others to follow suit to protest what he described as a dangerous government reach into civil society. Chavez's critics fear that if elections are
held to replace union leaders, the president's candidates will sweep those offices.

"I'm a businessman," said Hector Casado, a construction company owner who voted against the ballot issue. "I'm not going to support something that causes trouble
with the work force."

Chavez refused to back down, even after the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions announced last week that it was starting a worldwide
campaign against Venezuela, accusing it of violating international labor agreements and workers' rights to organize. The group's general secretary, Bill Jordan, said
that if Chavez jails CTV leaders who refuse to leave their posts, he will call on the confederation's 150 million members to boycott Venezuelan exports. In response,
Chavez called the group "a barking dog that wouldn't bite."