"President for life?
Eduardo Posada Carbó. TIME columnist.
Chavez has proposed 'sweep' with Venezuela's democratic past.
is announced. The same President Chavez has said on several occasions: "I will not leave until 2021. So be accustomed."
said than done may have still a long way, but this time the purpose of the Venezuelan leader will take shape after having confirmed plans to amend the constitution to allow presidential re-election indefinitely. Under current rules, the period culminating in 2012. With the measure, subject to referendum, Chavez hopes to be in power "at least" until 2021-the bicentennial of the Battle of Carabobo.
important to remember how the Venezuelan president has been to concentrate power since his first election in 1998. The following year, convened a constitutional assembly, dominated the vast majority -93 percent of the seats, for its supporters. This assembly extended the presidential term from 5 to 6 years, allowed immediate presidential re-election for a further period, abolished the Senate and, in general, strengthened the Executive.
a while Chavez controls the legislative and judicial and electoral authorities. Controls, of course, oil wealth. And the military. With the closure of Radio Caracas Television made clear its intention to control public opinion also. And last January, Congress passed the Enabling Act, which allows regulation on the most diverse materials until the middle of 2008-a "near dictatorial powers" that allowed the democratic process "on hold", according to El Pais of Madrid, a newspaper related to the English Socialist Party, but critical of the "XXI Century Socialism" Chavez.
the same day he announced his plans to stay in the presidential palace until "2021, at least," said he was "forbidden to foreigners coming to say that here is a dictatorship ... must be out of the country ". The chances of reelection "indefinite" is not a dictatorship, but the reassertion of a presidency that focuses very high degrees of power, a few limitations and lifelong aspirations.
would be the "life presidency", as observed by Natalio Botana in La Nacion of Buenos Aires, "... in our region represents a historical trend as old as lasting" tradition "of strong roots," it would be for it "difficult to break." Botana identifies historical parallels with Argentina and see examples of that tradition in Mexico of the PRI or Castro's Cuba. The "life presidency" would be "always on the lookout", but "recognizes, in some countries" more than others "(and in some, we should add, that tradition is rather alien). That tradition
seem to be particularly entrenched in Venezuela since the regime of General Páez after independence, reinforced in the twentieth century dictatorships Gómez and Pérez Jiménez. It is a deeply rooted intellectual support, and the ideas of Bolivar (in the Bolivian Constitution, as pointed Botana) or in the work of Vallenilla Laureano Lanz, democratic Caesarism (1919), simultaneously a defense of warlordism as "the real effective constitution country, "and a condemnation of" impersonal prestige of the law "-.
What should be noted with emphasis, however, is that that tradition, however entrenched it is, it is impossible to break. This was demonstrated by the Venezuelans themselves after 1958, democratic experience that flourished over a period of military dictatorships in many other parts of the continent. Chavez, who never abandons his military suit has been proposed to "sweep" with Venezuela's democratic past.
would be foolish to deny the serious problems that preceded and made possible the rise of Chávez. But a reassessment of the democratic traditions serve to cope with the threat of "presidency for life."
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