Venezuela's Chavez mulls 2010 vote to keep power

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday floated the idea of calling a new referendum in 2010 on allowing him to run for re-election indefinitely after he lost a similar vote in December.

In an unprecedented defeat for Chavez, Venezuelans narrowly rejected on December 2 a constitutional overhaul that included enshrining socialism as a state goal and granting him the right to stay in power as long as he kept winning elections.

In a state-of-the-nation speech on Friday, he said he might call another referendum in two years specifically on whether he can run to stay in office beyond his current term that ends in 2013.

With a grin, he told lawmakers, ambassadors and government ministers in the nationally televised four-hour speech that he was only "thinking aloud" and that it would be merely a "small amendment."

Lawmakers stood up applauding and chanted "Chavez is here to stay."

The anti-U.S. president and Cuba ally has said he wants to rule for decades.

In power since 1999, he is popular -- particularly among the majority poor -- for spending Venezuela's oil income on schools and clinics. But the opposition says he is a dictator-in-the-making set on creating another communist Cuba.

Chavez conceded defeat in December, saying he had failed "for now."

The constitution allows Venezuelans to hold a recall referendum against the president after he has completed half of his term. That will be in 2010 for Chavez.

Chavez said he could hold a recall vote against himself and add a question in the referendum to also determine if Venezuelans want to give him the right of "indefinite re-election."

Venezuelans balked at dozens of constitutional changes in the December referendum, concerned both that Chavez would accumulate too much power and that private property rights could be eroded.

But a vote focused on whether Chavez can run again could be more difficult for the still-fragmented opposition to win.

(Reporting by Saul Hudson; editing by Mohammad Zargham)