As far as I know he got them through a very laborious step by step process. Chavez was very limited in what he could do in his first term. As we won the legislature he got certain things through. Then he won constitutional amendments via the standard Venezuela procedure through which constitutional amendments are made. That let him start putting forward laws via referendum. I"m not sure whether there was such a right before, but of there was it was expanded in new constitution. He recently gained the power to rule by decree for a time -- not based on any new laws, but because there was a standard unrepealed procedure in the pre-Chavez Venezuelan constitution whereby congress could grant such a right. There are people on this list who could answer in more detail (and correct minor errors if I've made any). But the bottom line is that since his election Chavez has complied completely with "bourgeois legality" -- a data point supporting Andie's argument on liberalism and socialism.