[Marxism] Chavez Gains Free Rein in Venezuela

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Let's hope these developments give some of Venezuela's perfectionistic
critics something to consider in the weeks and months ahead. So far, it's
evident, nothing that Chavez can do is sufficient to merit their approval:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2007-January/008513.html
==================================================

Chavez Gains Free Rein in Venezuela
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ 
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/31/ap/headlines/d8n0j2ig0.txt

Members of the Venezuelan National Assembly vote a law that gives to
the President Hugo Chavez wide-ranging lawmaking authority during an
outdoor legislative session at Plaza Bolivar in Caracas, Wednesday,
Jan. 31, 2007. Lawmakers read out the proposed bill giving the
president special powers for 18 months to transform 11 broadly
defined areas, including the economy, energy and defense.(AP
Photo/Fernando Llano)

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez was granted free rein
Wednesday to accelerate changes in broad areas of society by
presidential decree, a move critics said propels Venezuela toward
dictatorship.

Convening in a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political
rally, lawmakers unanimously gave Chavez sweeping powers to legislate
by decree and impose his radical vision of a more egalitarian
socialist state.

"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez!
Long live socialism!" said National Assembly President Cilia Flores
as she proclaimed the "enabling law" approved by a show of hands.
"Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"

The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more
power than he has ever had in eight years as president, and he plans
to use it during the next 18 months to transform broad areas of
public life, from the economy and the oil industry in particular, to
"social matters" and the very structure of the state.

His critics call it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a
leader with unchecked power _ similar to how Fidel Castro monopolized
leadership years ago in Cuba.

"If you have all the power, why do you need more power?" said Luis
Gonzalez, a high school teacher who paused to watch in the plaza,
calling it a "media show" intended to give legitimacy to a repugnant
move. "We're headed toward a dictatorship, disguised as a democracy."

Hundreds of Chavez supporters wearing ruling-party red gathered in
the plaza, waving signs reading "Socialism is democracy," as
lawmakers read out passages of the law giving the president special
powers to transform 11 areas of Venezuelan law.

"The people of Venezuela, not just the National Assembly, are giving
this enabling power to the president of the republic," congresswoman
Iris Varela told the crowd.

President Bush said Wednesday that he's "concerned about the
Venezuelan people."

"I am concerned about the undermining of democratic institutions. 
And we're working to help prevent that from happening," Bush said 
in an interview with Fox News.

But in the square in Caracas, Venezuelan Vice President Jorge
Rodriguez publicly ridiculed the idea that the law is an abuse of
power, and argued democracy is flourishing.

"What kind of a dictatorship is this?" Rodriguez asked the crowd,
saying the law "only serves to sow democracy and peace."

"Dictatorship is what there used to be," Rodriguez said. "We want to
impose the dictatorship of a true democracy."

Chavez, a former paratroop commander re-elected with 63 percent of
the vote in December, has said he will decree nationalizations of
Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity
sector, slap new taxes on the rich, and impose greater state control
over the oil and natural gas industries.

The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to
transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and
financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as
gun regulations and military organization; and "adapt" legislation to
ensure "the equal distribution of wealth" as part of a new "social
and economic model."

Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms
aimed at bringing "power to the people" through thousands of newly
formed Communal Councils designed to give Venezuelans a say on
spending an increasing flow of state money on projects in their
neighborhoods, from public housing to potholes.

Venezuelan historian Ines Quintero said that with the new powers,
Chavez will achieve a level of "hegemony" that is unprecedented in
the nation's nearly five decades of democratic history.

Opposition leader Julio Borges called for the 4 million Venezuelans
who voted against Chavez not to be left out of decision-making,
particularly as he pushes for constitutional changes including
scrapping the term limits that would end his presidency in 2013.

"The worst we Venezuelans can do is throw in the towel and become
like an ostrich (burying our heads in the sand) and giving up the
fight," Borges told the Venezuelan radio station Union Radio.

But the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, said the
enabling law isn't anything new in Venezuela.

"It's something valid under the constitution," said Shannon, the
assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told
reporters in Colombia. "As with any tool of democracy, it depends how
it is used," he added. "At the end of the day, it's not a question
for the United States or for other countries, but for Venezuela."

Chavez has requested special powers twice before, but for more modest
legislative changes.

In 1999, shortly after he was first elected, he used it to push
through two new taxes and a revision of the income tax law after
facing fierce opposition in congress. In 2001, invoking an "enabling
law" for the second time, he decreed 49 laws including controversial
agrarian reform measures and a law that sharply raised taxes on
foreign oil companies.

Now Chavez has a free hand to bring under state control the oil and
natural gas projects still run by private companies in Venezuela, a
top oil supplier to the United States and home to South America's
largest gas reserves.

Chavez has said companies upgrading heavy oil in the Orinoco River
basin _ British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp.,
ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA _ must submit to
state-controlled joint ventures. The new law enables Chavez to
unilaterally "regulate" this transition if companies don't agree to
the new framework within an unspecified "peremptory period."

A service of the Associated Press(AP)




________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism