President for Life?

17 August 2007



Chavez Proposes End to Term Limits

Venezuela’s march to dictatorship appears to be picking up pace. President Hugo “Fidelito” Chavez addressed the National Assembly on Wednesday and asked that they extend the presidential term of office from six to seven years and abolish limits on the number of presidential terms a person can serve. He said, “If someone says this is a project to entrench oneself in power. No, it’s only a possibility, a possibility that depends on many variables.” With all due respect, the president is full of it.

In his speech, Mr. Chavez also asked the assembly to end the autonomy of the central bank, increase the government’s power to gain control of private property before any courts act, reduce the work day from 8 hours to 6, and create a “popular militia” to act either alongside or as part of the military. He added a few other things to his wish list: the power to designate military regions for “defense reasons,” (martial law?), the creation of regional governing entities that would be managed by vice-presidents appointed by the president (undermining the state governors, or abolishing them?), and demarcating Venezuela’s sovereignty in parts of the Caribbean by possibly building artificial islands (a silly idea that would establish nothing in international law).

Given that his supporters control the national assembly (they have all 167 seats thanks to a boycott by the opposition in the last election), legislation arranging a referendum on this will pass. And in the referendum, who will vote against the 6-hour workday? In all, he’s likely to get his amendments to 33 of the constitution’s 350 articles, or as he put it “less than 10%.” Said constitution dates from 1999 and was drafted after he was sworn in as president in February of that year. Apparently, he didn’t get it right the first time.

It is quite possible for a nation to become a dictatorship while retaining all the trappings of democracy. The Soviet Union managed to do so for decades. The People’s Republic of China still does. Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a model of dictatorship with a legal (and powerless) opposition party. Closer to Mr. Chavez, Paraguay’s Stroessner was elected (usually unopposed, sometimes with a “sacrificial lamb” opponent) president in 1954, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1988, serving 35 uninterrupted years. Torture, kidnapping and corruption were rife during the state of siege he declared every 90 days.

Mr. Chavez said of his opponents, “'They accuse me of planning to remain in power eternally or to concentrate power. We know that is not the case.” There is a simple way to prove it. Amend the constitution as proposed, with one proviso – Mr. Chavez should exempt himself from the office of president. Were he to do that, one could believe that his moves were to benefit the people of Venezuela rather than just one Venezuelan named Hugo Chavez.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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