Why Hugo Chávez Was Given More Authority
By Maria Páez Victor, PhD. 2 February 2007
This week, the parliament of Venezuela gave President Hugo Chávez, the authority to pass laws by decree for the next 18 months on 10 issues of domestic importance. This type of power has a time limit and an issue limit and is specifically allowed by Article 203 of the Venezuelan constitution.
It is not the first time President Chávez has been allowed this prerogative.
Twice before he was given such powers according to this constitutional provision and he carried out the duties allowed to him by the parliament without any misstep or abuse of power.
A close look at Venezuelan history shows that this power, also enshrined in the past constitution, was given to presidents Rómulo Betancourt (1959) Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974), Lusinchi (1984) and Velázquez (1993) to carry out decisions related to finance, external debt and creation of new state institutions among others. However, since these presidents were in friendly terms with the White House, there was no decrying of an erosion of Venezuelan democracy then.
In fact, during the past 40 years, there were abundant glaring abuses of human rights being committed in the country at the time but there was not one word of protest or concern by Washington.
President Chávez won an overwhelming landslide in the last elections in Dec.
2005 and during his campaign, he promised to transform Venezuela into the socialism of the XXI Century and to combat corruption within the state. No one can say he was not clear about this: a vote for Chávez was a vote for a new, humanist socialism, unlike any other, that Venezuelans would create for themselves. He is a politician bent on keeping his campaign promise – a rare thing indeed.
The areas President Chávez has been given authority over are all domestic matters. He promised to reform the unwieldy state apparatus and make it efficient and less prone to corruption. He also promised to re-nationalize the telephone and electrical utilities. The telephone company has an absolute monopoly over landline telecommunications including Internet. Carlos Andrés Pérez privatized it against the will of voters who elected him after he ran for office on an anti-privatization platform. He was later impeached for corruption. As for the electricity generation and supply, Venezuelans believe it is in their national interest that these be state owned so that electricity can be supplied to parts of the country that may not be profitable, but are very much in the interest of the local population, particularly the indigenous population.
He has not been given any power to change one iota issues of human rights or
any issue that could be of international interest. The government has repeated ad nauseam that property rights will be respected, enshrined as they are in the constitution and has promised shareholder will be compensated.
But none of this satisfies the White House or the lavishly compliant USA mainstream press. The intense focus on these Venezuelan internal matters is occurring because it is Chávez and Washington is doing everything it can erode his legitimate and well-earned position of a democratic leader.
The ten areas over which President Chávez has been given temporary authority
are:
(1) Transform state institutions. The Venezuelan state apparatus is a creature from the 40 previous years. He needs to make it more efficient and to include greater citizen participation to make it more accountable and transparent.
(2) Popular participation: Norms are needed or public participation at all levels of government so, that it can become an instrument of oversight much needed to combat corruption.
(3) Changes to the civil service: To counter and prevent corruption the enormous civil servant cadre needs reform and new laws that govern them.
(4) New economic model: Existing legislation needs to be adopted to achieve equality and equitable distribution of wealth. The oil rich Venezuelan state is essentially a distributor of wealth and regulation concerning this distribution needs to be made explicit; as well, the model of cooperativism and of endogenous development needs regulation.
(5) Finances and tax collection: In a country where very few used to pay taxes there is a need to modernize the monetary, banking, insurance and tax sectors.
(6) Citizen and judiciary security: There is need to modernize, update, the public health system, prisons, identification, migration regulations and to carry out further judicial reform.
(7) Science and Technology: This is an area of rapid change worldwide and norms are needed for science and technological development to meet the needs of education, health, environment, biodiversity, industrialization, quality of life, and defense.
(8) Territorial order: Norms are needed for territorial organization (states, jurisdictions, municipalities) related to voting and size of constituencies.
(9) Security and defense: Norms for establishing co-responsibility of state and organized communities for defense of the nation.
(10) Infrastructure: Norms are needed to improve the transportation system, public services, home construction, and telecommunications.
These are important internal affairs that pertain only to Venezuela. They represent a cleaning of house that responds to the need to modernize and update an ineffective state bureaucracy that has been very frustrating for the government and for its supporters. Now, President Chávez has received a clear and strong democratic mandate to do just that, both by the voters and by the legislators.
President Bush, on the other hand, has changed laws – with no time limit- that have allowed him unprecedented powers in the USA, powers that trample Americans’ rights and trash their constitution. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 gives Bush powers similar to those that Stalin and Bush had, giving its spying agencies powers similar to those of the KGB or Gestapo.
This Act does away with habeas corpus – the right to know why a person has been imprisoned and totally undermines the idea of innocent until proven guilty. Bush has abused human rights by allowing and promoting the use of torture. Bush keeps a gulag at Guantanamo where people are imprisoned and not allowed
lawyers of their choice nor allowed visits by Red Cross. He has trashed the Geneva Convention saying it does not apply to US and has waged war against a
country that did not attack the US and on false pretenses.
Venezuela, under President Chávez, has exemplary record of upholding human rights in the region. There is no reputable human rights organization that is accusing his government of murder, torture, secret prisoners or jails, state
violence, displacing people, or waging war.
Yet, the Bush Administration has spent $9 m in 2006 alone funding opposition
groups in Venezuela and was actively involved in the coup that kidnapped democratically elected President Chávez in 2002 and the economic lockout later that year that crippled the economy.
So, it is Bush who is trying to topple Chávez, not the other way around.
Such humbug and hypocrisy over legitimate domestic issues in Venezuela is one of the reasons that the reputation of the USA is so profoundly tarnished in Latin America. The USA mainstream media should be ashamed of itself for parroting the Bush Administration spin with so little analysis and critical thought. They violate the right of Americans to truthful and reliable information.
As for the mainstream Canadian media, it seems content to reproduce whatever
ridiculous articles their USA counterparts invent.
Maybe if Canadian newspapers and CBC actually had reporters stationed in the greater part of this hemisphere they might have a chance at understanding the seminal change that has occurred in Latin America, basically, that the most of it has declared its independence from USA domination and has thrown the Monroe Doctrine to the winds.
References: Gregory Wilpert, Venezuelan Legislature Allows President to Pass
Laws by Decree for 18 Months, Venezuelanalysis.com, 31 January 2007
Eric Wingerter, Hugo Chavez, the Press and the “Rule by Decree” Meme in Venezuela, OpEdNews.com, 29 January 2007
Eva Golinger, Confused About Venezuela? Venezuelanalysis.com, 13 January 2007 Venezuela Update, January 2007, Venezuela Information Office
Venezuelanalysis.com, Venezuelan Legislature rejects US Official’s Comments on Enabling Law, 23 January 2007 Carla Binion, Bush’s Absolute Power Grab, Consortium News, 21 October 2006 mar
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