Venezuelan students lead Chavez referendum outcry

By Fabian Andres Cambero

MERIDA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Nestled in Venezuela's snow-capped Andes, Merida is a picturesque city with tidy public squares, a cable car and a novelty ice cream store offering flavors from garlic to viagra.

But its university seethes with political protest.

Burnt tires, thrown rocks and graffiti scrawls of 'Yes' or 'No,' litter the campus and city back streets following violent clashes over left-wing President Hugo Chavez's plan to rewrite the constitution and scrap limits on how long he can rule.

The political turmoil in a city known for tourism and academia has also played out across the OPEC nation as students lead a growing outcry against Chavez's move, giving him the toughest vote test of his eight years in office.

Marches in the Andes, the plains, the Caribbean coast and the capital Caracas have drawn hundreds of thousands of students into the streets against a raft of constitutional changes that must be approved on Sunday in a referendum.

"We are looking to make people conscious of the arbitrary nature of what the government is doing," engineering student Mayra Cruz said as she distributed "No" leaflets in Merida. "If they don't wake up, then when it does affect them, they will wonder why they didn't do anything to stop it."

Chavez supporters dominate Congress, the courts, the country's electoral body and the state oil company in the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the United States.

He is highly popular for his oil-financed social spending programs, his folksy style and his open confrontation with the United States, which is unpopular in much of Latin America.

But his constitutional overhaul is far less attractive to voters.

Apart from ending limits on his own rule, the proposal would formalize Venezuela as a socialist state, allow Chavez to censor media in an "emergency" and let him handpick regional officials with more power than elected governors and mayors.

He has added sweeteners such as giving workers most of Fridays off, but polls show he could lose the vote.

Chavez first won power in a 1998 election and again coasted to victory in 2000 and last year, but he would have to leave office in 2013 unless he can reform the constitution.

STUDENT STAND

Traditional opposition parties have been weakened by bickering and failed to find much support outside the wealthier classes, so the student movement has filled a void.

In May, when Chavez ignored most Venezuelans' objections and shut a TV station, students flooded the streets.