Posted on 01/16/2005 3:42:23 PM PST by Kitten Festival
When Hugo Chavez was running for President, he emphasized that he did not believe in representative democracy, but in participatory democracy. So much so, that Chavez refused to sign the declaration after the Quebec Summit, because it used representative rather than participatory.
I had to wonder what happened to that when the Venezuelan National assembly named this week a committee to choose a replacement for Central Bank Director Manuel Lago. Despite the fact that the National assembly is split almost 50/50 between pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez Deputies (there is a difference of only three Deputies out of 160), there is not a single representative of the opposition. It is two Ministers of the Cabinet, two pro-Chavez Deputies and a pro-Chavez member of the Academy of Sciences. Thus, the opposition will have absolutely no input into the decision. The decision was protested today by Proyecto Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Central Bank is the only important institution that is not totally controlled by the Government, but it looks like it will lose its independence soon as this Director and its President are replaced unilaterally.
Of course, Chavez left his beloved participatory democracy aside a long time ago. Committees that are supposed to have representation from non-Government organizations function without it, all Chavista candidates for Governor and Mayor were picked by Chavez himself and the opposition did not know the new Supreme Court Justices until their names came up for the vote in the Assembly. Oh shucks! Another broken promise.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.salon.com ...
ping
ping
Sorry Kitten Festival -- that ping wasn't meant for you.
Whether Chavez can be removed from office alive is a very open question at this point.
I don't think so. But I think Uribe is going to make that scumbag's life miserable and there will be plenty more of these spats. Bounty hunters are gonna be all over Venezuela and that's gonna upset the FARC. They, in turn, will make trouble for chavez. I'd love to see one of those scumbags off chavez. Wouldn't that be poetic justice?
I feel it is very likely chavez is in for the duration at this point.
Of course, Venezuela elected him in 1998, KNOWING he wasn't in favor of rule of law, orderly transfers of power, etc. Their frustration with their traditional oligarchies was such that they put an ideologue in power, re-elected him in 2000 after he gutted their constitution, and then spectacularly managed to depose and re-instate him in 2002(?) when the opposition proved it was just incompetent. I don't regard the 2004 referendum as representative, given the comments about machine fraud. I have no idea of the truth, of course, but if carter supports him it cannot be good.
They asked for it, and they have got it. I assume the US has given up on this also...it is almost impossible to unseat a sitting dictator, as was made evident with the 3-year melodrama of trying to get Noriega out of power in Panama, where the US already had 10's of thousands of soldiers a few miles from his headquarters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.