Chavez has admitted that the reforms have been lost "for now", after his 33 proposed changes lost 49.3% to 50.7%, with 45% abstention, and the other 66 changes lost 49% to 51%.
Minimum program for getting out of this situation should include:
1) Expropriation of all media outlets which in violation of electoral law encouraged people to stay at home because the outcome was obvious.
2) Expropriation of all media outlets which published blatant falsehoods about the reforms, including things like the state will own your children, and the reforms will turn the country into Cuba.
3) To make the country truly democratic, the ability of a handful of individuals to influence so many people by way of such nonsense claims must be stopped; the media must be taken out of the hands of the few and placed into the hands of the many.
4) Modify reform proposals; reduce presidential terms from the proposed 7 years to 5 years, etc.
5) Try again in 3 months time.
Maximum program:
1) End the class war by liquidating the capitalist class immediately by way of declaring private ownership of the means of production illegal, something that should of happened in 2002.
When people like this, who make up 80% of the population can be defeated there are questions to ask about how democratic a society is.
Defeated by this lot, the people who own the media, the people who have got rich at the expense of everybody else for decades. The people who wear suits that cost as much as a workers' wages for a year! How can a minority win an election?
Of course Chavez is playing it softly softly as usual. The class war has to be won Chavez, do it or go home, the tiny minority of bourgeois lackies cannot be allowed power.