Update 12:30 Eastern: Clearly the fat lady has sung for Chavez (or is that just Chavez in drag moaning about his defeat??). More here and it looks like 2% loss. Clearly Chavez needed more fake ballots to stuff than he first estimated.

Update 12:27 Eastern: Seems the Chavez lost by 5% if these Venezuelan press numbers are correct. H/T American Pundit.

Update 12:22 Eastern: Seems there are sources in the elections office (CNE) that are now admitting Chavez lost

Quico says: Multiple sources inside CNE now confirm it. Chávez’s constitutional reform proposal has been defeated at the polls. An official announcement is imminent.

I will keep posting on this for a while yet, but folks can also check in here to read a local blogger. – end updates

The buffoon from Venezuela seems to have failed in his bid to become ruler for life:

With the government-controlled National Electoral Council mysteriously mum, Venezuelans waited for results of a sweeping constitutional referendum that could give President Hugo Chavez vast new powers.

The publication of exit polls is prohibited in Venezuela before official tallies are announced. But as midnight neared with still no word from the National Electoral Council, opposition leaders were all smiles and broadly hinting that their side was winning.

“Today we begin a new path, a democratic path,” opposition leader Manuel Rosales told a news conference.

Vice President Jorge Rodriguez, by contrast, was subdued during a televised press conference, saying only that “the result of the referendum is hard-fought.”

If Chavez had the votes we would all know by now – he would be strutting and babbling like he always does. My guess is it wasn’t even close – he got hammered. Chavez is insane and crooked enough to try and rig the vote, but a landslide cannot be rigged. I expect the next thing we here from ‘His Madness’ is how this was all a CIA plot to rig the election. Then I expect to see a violent crackdown as the inner facsist in Chavez is forced to the surface. Venezuela is in for a rough time, but this is why you don’t elect unstable leaders – no matter how frustrated you are with the process of democracy.