Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will seek to break up 69 proposed changes to the constitution into separate blocks for voter approval, abandoning an earlier plan to put them all into a single up-or-down ballot.

While he still supports a single vote on his initial ideas -- such as eliminating term limits for the president and cutting the work day to six hours -- changes added by the National Assembly, such as guaranteeing gay rights, cutting the voting age to 16 and eliminating due process in states of emergency, may be best voted on separately, he said today in a speech.

``These proposals could well be voted on in blocks, as the constitution requires,'' Chavez said at an event celebrating the anniversary of his state-sponsored women's organization.

Mounting resistance to the constitutional plan from political opponents, students and even some lawmakers who previously supported the president's so-called socialist revolution, may have prompted Chavez to pull back from his original strategy, said Liliana Fasciani, a legal philosophy professor at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas.

``He's trying to soften his proposal,'' she said in a telephone interview.

`Great Campaign'

Changes including the elimination of central bank autonomy and granting the president the power to dissolve state and local governments to create federal territories have drawn sharper criticism in recent weeks.

Thousands of students marched Oct. 23 in downtown Caracas to protest, and yesterday a national business association called Consecomercio demanded the president retract the plan and open a national dialogue. The Podemos political party, which has supported Chavez since his election in 1999, refused to back the new constitution, calling it a power grab.

The national assembly is expected to submit a final version of the new constitution to the country's elections regulator by Nov. 2, and a referendum has been set tentatively for Dec. 2.

Chavez said today he was confident that his political opponents won't succeed at defeating his proposal.

``Get ready for this great campaign that's coming up,'' he said. ``We'll wipe you out.''

The national elections authority turned down a demand by Chavez's opponents that the proposals be voted upon article by article.

The president will still be able to bundle together popular changes, such as the reduction in the work day, with more contentious ones, such as the elimination of term limits, said Fasciani, the law professor.

``He sees that he doesn't have the unconditional support of the people,'' she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Bodzin in Caracas at sbodzin@bloomberg.net; Matthew Walter in Santiago at mwalter4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 31, 2007 19:09 EDT