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By Tibisay Soto
CARACAS: Is Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez preparing to make himself the new Fidel
Castro, now that the Cuban leader is at death’s door or, even if
he is kept alive for many more years, is no longer be able to
function as the Left-wing’s Latin American ‘supremo’?
Chavez and Fidel Castro are the
best of friends.
Venezuelan legislators voted
unanimously on January 19 to grant their leftist firebrand president
the power to rule by decree for 18 months. The previous week, he had
begun a second six-year term vowing to seek to become president for
life.
The bill authorizes Chavez to
“rule by decree ... with the force of law,” legislative
president Cilia Flores said after a unanimous show of hands in
favor.
“We welcome this enabling law,
with the support of the National Assembly, which backs our leader
[Chavez],” she added.
Chavez, in power since 1999,
began serving a new term a week ago, with his allies controlling
Venezuela’s unicameral legislature.
Opponents called the special law
a “totalitarian abuse” of power.
But Flores said, “There will
always be opponents, and especially when they know that these laws
will deepen the revolution”—a term Chavez uses to describe his
socialist movement.
Chavez is expected to abolish the
independence of the Central Bank and to nationalize Venezuela’s
telecommunications and electrical industries.
He has already announced
Venezuela will acquire 51 percent shares in foreign oil operations.
And he has called for the
constitution to be changed to lift any limit on presidential terms.
Chavez has piqued the ire of the
United States with his fierce anti-US rhetoric, his affinity for
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his warm relations with Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who visited Venezuela last week.
Washington also accuses Chavez of
destabilizing Latin America, where the presidents of Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay all
have leftist leanings.
Chavez’s plans include changing
the official name of the country, to the “Socialist Republic of
Venezuela” and adding a stanza to the national anthem lauding
Simon Bolivar, the “Liberator” of much of South America from
Spain and an inspiration to most Venezuelan presidents.
Leftist parties announced earlier
this week talks to form a single coalition to promote Chavez’
program of “socialism for the 21st century.”
To that end, Chavez in December
asked the 21 political parties backing him to join in a broad
coalition to run the country which is the world’s fifth oil
producer and the fourth supplier to the United States.
“Creation of a socialist state
will take nine or 10 months,” legislator Carlos Escarra said.
“The perverse rules of the
great transnational [corporations] will be forced to yield before
the sign of our times.”
Deputy Antonio Montenegro
recommended “not wasting time convincing the opposition of the
sense of the socialist revolution.”
“We cannot dally over what the
opposition thinks. They want to detain this project, which is
gaining momentum in Latin America.”
Teodoro Petkoff, campaign manager
for Chavez’ presidential opponent Manuel Rosales, said: “In an
environment of obsequiousness and servility, ‘I, the Supreme
[Chavez] am ready to legislate, backed by this far-reaching,
enabling law.’”
The law, Petkoff said in a column
published in the daily Tal Cual, allows Chavez to legislate
“without any debate in the country.”
--AFP with additional analytical commentary by The Manila Times
Op-Ed staff
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