Venezuela's President Stages His Own Coup

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mounted a coup d' etat recently, that went virtually unnoticed outside the country. Although he will submit to a recall vote later this summer, despite initially trying to quash it, he has ensured that the Supreme Court will go along with what he says in the matter of the count. He signed a law a few days back allowing him to expand the court to 32 from 20 judges and allows his supporters to purge the sitting judges.

As anyone who followed the American election of 2000, the party that controls the courts controls the count -- and the independence of the judiciary is a fraud in any nation when it comes to deciding who wields power in the other branches. Other Latin American examples of this sort of putsch can be found in Carlos Menem's Argentina when he packed the court in the 1990s, and in Alberto Fujimori's Peru, where he went so far as to fire some judges and deny tenure to others. It is not Latin America's finest trait.

In specific terms, the control of the Supreme Court of Venezuela will be vital in determining the outcome of any challenges to the recall rules. Moreover, should Mr. Chavez lose the recall, the court will have to decide if he can constitutionally be a candidate to succeed himself. Logic says no, but logic doesn't enter into it.

Mr. Chavez has run his country badly, and it is amusing only from a distance to watch a country awash in oil struggle as the price soars to $40 a barrel. He needs to leave office because he is incompetent, but that is not the basis on which the recall is being held. His supporters, having faced down an extra-constitutional take-over, have decided that keeping power is more important than the rule of law.

In cases like this is it always preferable for the man in charge to be a colonel who has come to power at 4 am Sunday morning. At least then, there is no pretence that his rule is legitimate. Between such a man and Mr. Chavez, there is only a difference of detail.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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