March 16th., 2009

Chavez Thinks He Is Almighty

In Hello President, Chavez displayed a language loaded with violence and hatred. He ordered the Army to take the ports in the States governed by the opposition. “If the Governor puts up resistance, put him in jail. This is my order and must be complied with next week.” Hello President was broadcast from Cumana, where the President signed a new law banning the trawler fishing. He ordered the expropriation of ships aimed at this modality of fishing and handed out equipment and credits to a group engage in artisan fishing, the only type of fishing from now on permitted in the Venezuelan territorial waters and the exclusive maritime zone. He also ordered to take the airports in States with governors of the opposition, instructing military officers to implement such measure. “If the governor of Carabobo - who said he would defend Puerto Cabello - gets funny, then capture him in the act. The Navy is going there.” The national legislation assigns the administration of ports and airports to the regional governments, a rule intended to the ends of decentralization, one of the most important achievements of the Venezuelan democracy. He calls the governor of Táchira fascist, because such governor had announced that he would denounce before the OAS the Organic Law on Decentralization passed by the National Assembly. “Go wherever you want, but ports and airports will be controlled by my administration.”         

“To get funny” (put up resistance) is the phrase used by the President upon ordering or threatening with expropriations. He said to the president of Polar, the most important industrial enterprise of the country, “if you get funny, I will take the company away from you and I will pay you with debt bonds.” To the president of the National Stockbreeder Federation, “if you get funny, I will take the ranch away from you.” He said the same to Coca Cola, upon ordering the expropriation of some properties of the company. The crime of “getting funny” is punished with the immediate occupation of ranches, industrial and commercial facilities, etc. A columnist of El Universal, Adolfo Salgueiro, writes: “The most serious crime nowadays is to “get funny”, which is equivalent to disagree with the Commander’s whims and desires. Getting funny is punished with expropriation, which in practice is a confiscation, given that there is no money nor political will to pay for such expropriations (cement industries, Sidor, ranches) and because the Venezuelan debt bonds have lost their credibility and value.”

Chavez thinks he is almighty. He said he is reviewing the gasoline prices, a subject which he did not dare to face during his previous 11 years of administration. Gasoline is sold for 5-6 dollars and the cost of producing a barrel is estimated in 25 dollars. He said that it is not fair that rich people consuming a lot of gasoline in luxury cars be currently paying the cheapest gasoline of the world. This is true, but not only rich people are consuming gasoline, but all social classes. The announcement evidences the serious fiscal problems Chavez is confronting and this will be the opportunity to measure the Commander’s actual power. If he puts into effect this statement, the wave of protests will be uncontrollable, including Chavists. There will be an increment in people demonstrating in the streets on a daily basis, evidencing a growing unrest respecting the regime.

CENTRALIZATION OF POWER

The king is naked. This is a suitable phrase to describe Chavez’s position during the last weeks. If someone had any doubts on the characteristics of this regime, these are already cleared, unless he is a fanatic. Governors and mayors elected for the opposition were deprived of the powers assigned to them by the laws, powers which were transferred to the central administration. Chavez did this since the election of such governmental officers, before the date of taking office, so as to show a little of what the future holds. An emblematic case is the Metropolitan Mayoralty of Caracas. The city has four municipal mayoralties, three of which were won by candidates of the opposition. The Metropolitan Mayor, Antonio Ledezma, in compliance with a legal standard, convened the four mayors in order to coordinate and plan the work. The Chavist candidate, elected in the Libertador Municipality, refused to appear and announced his own agenda, supported by Chávez who announced in turn that such mayor was going to be the authority receiving the resources necessary to the best administration of the city. The Municipal Palace, seat of the Metropolitan Mayoralty, was occupied by a crowd of Chavez’s followers supported by the police. Occupants took possession of assets and records, causing damages to historically valuable paintworks. Ledezma has had to work at improvised offices, because he is still being prevented from occupying the seat of the mayoralty. The strategy of the government is not to work with the local governments won by the opposition. According to a columnist of El Nacional, in Caracas the official conduct of the government, to say it in colloquial Spanish, consists in “neither laundering nor lending the sink.” The city has been at a loss without a coordinated future orienting the common actions and joint programs aimed at attacking its big problems, and now, when the democratic alternative has the metropolitan government in its hands and tries to comply with the corresponding duties that the law provides, and Mayor Ledezma shows his willing to work jointly with the central government, the official pole not only refuses to participate, but also openly sabotages the Metropolitan Mayoralty’s management by using violence through red shirt brigades, kidnapping officers, invading offices and destroying public properties. The regime insists not listen to 5 million citizens systematically opposing to Chavez’s project, and 3 million citizens systematically abstaining. This is a refusal to treat 60% of the population with respect, which is irresponsible and criminal, because the ones who pay the cost of such sectarianism are the citizens, including Chavez’s followers. Big urban problems may not be solved from certain particular municipality, but from the city as a whole. Offering great resources to one municipality governed by a representative of the ruling party and refusing to provide such resources to the rest constitutes sectarianism, opportunism and unconstitutionality subject to penalty in any democratic country.

The regime’s answer is to eliminate with a single stroke of the pen the powers of governors and mayors. He ordered the National Assembly to pass a law according to which no regional or local government may ignore the socialist agenda. The President is empowered to divide the national territory into regions and to appoint officers to govern such regions. Official spokesmen have informed that such new viceroys will be Army officers and that eventually, Chavez may appoint them as Vice-Presidents. Accordingly, the country would be governed by Chavez and a military officer appointed by him for each region. Chavez has been qualified as an autocratic, authoritarian ruler. This is a proper and truthful statement, but in last weeks, Chavez seems to be scared and hiding his fears behind an inflammatory, threatening speech and absurd measures, many of which he will not be able to enforce. Like whistling past the cemetery.

DE FACTO REGIME

Chavez faces the resistance of governors and mayors which powers he intends to ignore. They have announced that they will ignore the authority of those who have not been elected by the people. The Metropolitan Council has confirmed such statement. The Mayor of Baruta said “We are not going to acknowledge any authority different from Mayor Antonio Ledezma. The National government is not going to force us to violate the Constitution.” The governor of Miranda was very emphatic in this sense: “We are not going to just stand here and do nothing. We received a mandate from the people to govern and we are going to govern whether some men in the National Assembly who represent nobody like it or not.” The Metropolitan Mayor said that he is not defending a post or a quota of power, but the principle of decentralization as provided by the Constitution. “This is not an isolated struggle of the mayors of Caracas or the Governor of Miranda. This is rather a struggle of all the Mayors and Governors of this country and we are certain that the people will not be indifferent to the dismantling of the democratic system of our country.” According to the Director of the School of Citizens, this measure is unacceptable because it “corners” the people. “A Vice-President involves that no communal council, no neighbors association will be valid. There will be no local council for public policies. Solely the President’s will”

The Democracy and Liberty Movement made public a manifesto, stating that after the last electoral events held on December 2, 2007, November 23, 2008 and February 15, 2009, Chavez decided to abandon the democratic path, given that in all the three of them we was defeated. As a result, Chavez considers the amendment for indefinite reelection as a carte blanche, not only to reelect the President without limits in time, but to lay the foundations of a de facto regime, incompatible with the State of Law. “The President assumes the reelection as a coronation of the absolute monarch, to impose his will of personal power, speeding up the implementation of a new agenda of destruction of legal, economic and social grounds of coexistence and development. From his perspective of perpetual ruler, he disdains the destruction of Venezuela’s cultural and human resources”

There is an interest in the Fifth Summit of the Americas to be held in Port of Spain. Chavez’s regime is in the fringes of the State of Law, clearly violating the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Chavez will appear at the Summit with a new trophy: Mauricio Funes’ triumph in El Salvador. During the electoral campaign, Chavez was the subject of a heated debate, being accused of financing the FMLN’s candidate. None of the countries represented at the Summit will dare to recall that according to the Charter, the peoples of America have the right to a democracy and their governments have the obligation to promote and defend such democracy. Chavez violates the principles of the International Law on the accomplice silence of the rulers, which is not shared with the citizens, who on a daily basis provide strong statements of disapproval against the hegemonic regime imposed by Chavez and who demand the international community to comply with its duty to defend the values and principles of democracy. The Summit will show that the governments of the Continent have thrown to the garbage the inconvenient Democratic Charter.