At the heart of the dispute lies the pro-Chávez legislators' ability to ease through a half-dozen bills -- all regarded by the opposition as authoritarian and potentially repressive -- held up in a parliamentary commission on which the Chávez supporters are a minority.
One is a media bill criticized by human rights organizations as a direct threat to freedom of expression. Another would add an extra 12 judges to the 20-member supreme court, in what the opposition sees as an attempt to ensure a pro-government majority.
The rule change introduced at Friday's session will allow the Congress to vote on the bills. However, the bitterness of the current dispute casts doubt on the continued functioning of the legislature and on the recent agreement brokered by Organization of American States Secretary General César Gaviria, aimed at resolving the country's political crisis.
…………………….. Several opposition members, however, said the coup was being carried out by the government. They argued that Chávez' slim majority in the legislature, which on some issues is as little as two or three votes, was looking to close down the legislature altogether.
Political analyst Alberto Garrido, author of several books on Chávez, said the issue had little to do with the technicalities of parliamentary rules.
Pointing out that the president had consistently argued for the introduction of ''people's power'' and against representative, liberal democracy, Garrido said Chávez's political project had ``moved to a different level.''
Ameliach announced Friday that such outdoor sessions would be held ``whenever and wherever necessary in order to guarantee the sovereign people [that we are carrying out] our functions as legislators.'' ***
"I'm ugly ... black mixed with Indian, that's me," he said, referring jokingly but proudly to his mixed-race ancestry which he shares with most of Venezuela's population.
"I'm a little uncouth sometimes. What can I do? I'm not going to change," Chavez added, speaking during his weekly "Hello President" television and radio show.
Chavez rose from obscurity to become a national figure in 1992 when he tried to seize power in a botched coup. Launching a political career after two years in jail, he won a landslide election in late 1998, promising a self-styled "revolution" to help his country's poor majority.
But his opponents, who have waged a determined campaign of protests and strikes against him, accuse Chavez of ruling like a dictator and of trying to install Cuba-style communism.
"I am not a communist ... if I was, I would say so," Chavez said. He added this distinguished him from Cuban President Fidel Castro, with whom he has forged a close alliance that has irked the United States, the main buyer of Venezuela's oil.
"Fidel Castro, my friend and brother, is a communist, but Venezuela's project is not communist," Chavez said. "At this moment in Venezuela, the program cannot be a communist one." [End]