Chavez Takes Another Shot at a Limitless Presidency
The results of Sunday's vote on eliminating term limits will have ramifications for Venezuelans — and the entire world.
In December 2007, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held a referendum in an effort to change the Venezuelan constitution. Even though he already controlled the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, and the entire federal bureaucracy, the 69 amendments put forward in the referendum would have ended presidential term limits and centralized Chavez’s power. According to the current constitution, Chavez’s term is scheduled to expire in 2013.
While the referendum was rejected by 51% of the voters, it didn’t halt Chavez’s efforts to consolidate his power. Last year he enacted 26 new laws but only provided their titles, not their content. He also continued to push for ending presidential term limits. On February 15, the country will vote again on those term limits. Unfortunately, political opposition to Chavez has few resources and no unified leadership. Student demonstrators have been tear-gassed and fired at with rubber bullets by police. Nonetheless, a large demonstration was held last weekend.
A limitless term for Chavez will have ramifications not just for Venezuelans but for the entire world. The country’s business environment has been rated by the Economist as the world’s second worst; Venezuela’s official inflation rate of 31% is rated number one out of the 82 world currencies tracked by Bloomberg; a computer belonging to FARC (Revolutionary Armed Members of Colombia) members revealed that Chavez had sent hundreds of millions of oil dollars to the Colombian terrorists; and just last week, three low-intensity explosions in Caracas — at a statue of George Washington, the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Caracas, and a judicial building — created further insecurity, as Stratfor and other analysts were unable to ascertain who was behind the attacks.
Furthermore, since taking office in February 1999, Chavez has forged increasingly strong ties with Iran, including:
- In December 2008, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that Iran is using Venezuelan aircraft to ship missile parts to Syria, thereby dodging United Nations sanctions.
- The same newspaper also reported that Venezuela’s airline, Conviasa, transports computers and engine components from the Iranian industrial group Shahid Bagheri, which is involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program.
- Iran Air initiated direct air service between Tehran, Damascus, and Caracas at Chavez’s invitation.
- Western anti-terrorism officials are concerned that Hezbollah may be using Venezuela as a base for operations, including kidnappings, extortion, and drug smuggling.
Chavez also consistently rants against the U.S. in his radio and TV program, Aló Presidente, rarely missing an opportunity to blame the CIA for creating mayhem or trying to oust him. And he is also in sync with Iran when it comes to his views on Israel and the Jews. He has a long record of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel statements.
In December 2005, a Venezuelan blog — The Devil’s Excrement — translated Chavez’s televised rant:
The world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world, a minority has taken ownership of all of the gold of the planet, of the silver, of the minerals, the waters, the good lands, oil, of the wealth then and have concentrated the wealth in a few hands.
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Fausta Wertz writes on Latin America, New Jersey, taxation, current events, and the French and Spanish-language media at Fausta’s Blog.
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34 Comments
1. vivo:Chávez is a hard working politician and Venezuelans can’t keep up with him. He knows what he wants and all Venezuelans want is a comfortable life without too much effort. So he stays in power. You can’t get rid of him from outside. Just like any other country. So learn to live with him. Oh, and they have oil . . .
Feb 13, 2009 - 4:52 am 2. Kate:Vivo, surely you jest. Hard working? Doing what? Giving away Venezuelan oil profits to the US? I have Venezuelan family and you’re right: they want a comfortable life. However, on Chávez’s watch, violent crime has skyrocketed to the point where they are scared to leave their homes; hardly a definition of comfort. And yes, they have oil…but that doesn’t mean too much when the price of the Venezuelan oil basket is hovering right around $30/barrel and virtually all of Chávez’s social spending is based on PDVSA funds.
Feb 13, 2009 - 5:39 am 3. Eowyn2:Chavez, and his minions, will make sure that enough ‘people’ vote him into life time president. He probably only failed the first time because he miscounted the votes needed prior to the referendum. He’s done so much for the country, what with 30% inflation and all.
Vivo: Define ‘Comfort’
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:11 am 4. gordo:Obama = Chavez
Look at the first year of Chavez’s reign, very similar to what Obama is doing.
One positive thing for Chavez is at least Vzla produces a product to sell and that attempts to support all the social welfare programs.
Obama on the other hand has a country that has no direct govt product to sell. Taxes and more taxes is all Obama can plan on.
Obama = Chavez
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:49 am 5. Wally Lind:They are all kind of alike, aren’t they? Dictators, I mean. Whether they hide in “democratic” elections of declare themselves “president-for-life”, they just never have enough power. But that is the problem of the Venezuelan people, not ours. If they can’t maintain a democracy, that is their lookout. I understand their oil is hard to refine and, at $30/barrel it really doesn’t pay for many of the dictator’s dictates. Oh well!
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:52 am 6. Wally Lind:I’m tired of spending American resources to pull Latin American beans out of the fire. Let’s buy our oil somewhere else, and let Chavez sell his to the Russians. There is plenty of oil near him, in Brazil, and they have a mature government.
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:01 am 7. Oscar the Grump:One thing is for sure the 8000 Jews of Venezuela have started leaving the country. There has been a rash of attacks on Jews there. Synagogues have been desecrated. There is a general air of intimidation. The Jewish population is looking toward Columbia or the USA or Israel as a possible new home.
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:28 am 8. dave742:Oscar the Grump:
So guess who was arrested for desecrating the synagogue in Venezuela? One was a guard for the synagogue, and the other was a personal bodyguard for the Rabbi. I wonder what the explanation could pssible be for that??
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/09/1002862/alleged-venezuelan-synagogue-vandals-arrested
Feb 13, 2009 - 10:34 am 9. dan:why is vivo allowed to post on pajamas? i don’t get it. he is either an idiot or a prostitute or both.
Feb 13, 2009 - 11:07 am 10. gordo:wally lind,
you say Chavez is the problem of the Vzla people. I agrre due to the fact that they initially voted for him, however his style of governing is not allowing the people to oust him through a vote.
Obama is beginning to play the same games. Obama will still honor an eight year appointment,if he wins a second term, however with the games he wants to play with welfare type projects ie stimulus and the census he is trying to get so many on the dole that the libs/dems will not be voted out.
It is all to clear.
Obama is now our problem.
Feb 13, 2009 - 11:09 am 11. dave742:This kind of thing happens in dictatorships all over the world. In a similar failed state, there was an elected official that served nearly two full terms. During that time, he favored term limits, and even vetoed a bill that sought to extend terms for some elected officials. When his second term was running down, however, he decided he wanted to stay in office and sought to change the term limit law, without even putting the decision to the voters (even evil Chavez is allowing the voters to decide the issue). The largest newspaper in that country, after long being in support of term limits, decided to change its mind and oppose term limits just as these events unfolded. So what is this other dictatorship where this type of thing happens? The US:
wcbstv.com/local/bloomberg.third.term.2.834260.html
nytimes.com/2008/10/01/nyregion/01support.html
nytimes.com/2008/10/01/opinion/01wed2.html
Here are some other dictatorships with no term limits: France, Australia, Italy, Japan, Canada.
Uribe of Columbia (Pablo Escobar’s best buddy), is currently in the process of changing its Constitution for the SECOND TIME to allow for his third term. He is doing this without the consent of the voters. I am sure Pajamasmedia will have a thread on that soon.
Feb 13, 2009 - 11:58 am 12. Thomas:@dan
I explain to you: “vivo” and some others on this blog is a piece of fossil from the early Marxist period. We (I am of Eastern European descent) went trough his dream world in the last 60 years and we explored every variant of his favorite theme: the Stalinist personality cultist, the awakening Commies with Khruschev, the return of the strong: Brezhnev, then the Communist Enlightenment with Gorbi …. then we had some small violinists like Ceausescu, Honecker (E. German) Kadar (Hungarian) Castro etc. etc.
They all failed and the track they left behind is strewn with dead bodies, misery, poverty and lots of tears.
In the end they were kicked out and not even their tanks and ubiquitous death squads could save them: some were summary executed like Ceausescu.
They are now, get this: banned even in Russia!
So they moved to the West were people are more naive, gullible, their head is full of garbage like PC, shrieking Racist! Racist! endlessly, talking nonsenses from the Comm.Manifesto, and live in an inveterate state of confusion.
For most of us experienced travelers-in-history it is a daily laughing matter to see the desperate attempt by countless “vivo”, “Magic Kenyan Boy”, “Hugos” and alike trying to reinvent the wheels of a defunct past; you will fail miserably because you forgot the the ultimate wisdom of your Mentor, your guiding spirit and God…
Karl Marx who famously had said: “If that is Marxism then I am not a Marxist.
Feb 13, 2009 - 12:32 pm 13. Oscar the Grump:dave742
Feb 13, 2009 - 12:35 pm 14. dave742:Thanks for the article.
If you want an explanation you have to ask Chavez himself. It has all his earmarks.
Oscar the Grump:
I guess Chavez ordered the Rabbis bodyguard to vandalize the synagogue. That makes sense.
Thomas:
“I am of Eastern European descent”
If you don’t like socialism, maybe you should return to where you ancestors were from. At this point in history we have Putin warning the US about socialism:
therightperspective.org/?p=1472
Times change.
Feb 13, 2009 - 12:52 pm 15. gcblues:chavez is underestimated over and over again. he is a natural continuation of JFK’s post bay of pigs welcome to communism in this hemisphere. private polls vs the polls you read make clear chavez is not popular. in venezuela, as is true here in nicaragua, communists exert enough control on the media to taint outcomes. note fairness doctrine. the bolivarian, ALBA, nonsense is nothing more than a smoke screen. ALBA’s alliances with russia, iran and al queda are not smoke. underestimated is the insurgency that is fermenting down here with the target being gingolandia.
Feb 13, 2009 - 1:37 pm 16. Thomas:stupidly gringos supported murderous thugs to suppress communism, which made communism more attractive than gringos. duh. as long as gringos want to build walls, remain white speaking ugly english, keep drugs illegal while using them all and using agricultural quotas to keep latins poor while claiming they are capitalists they will never make inroads in latin america. considering the rate of population and economic growth here vs there, you people are simply digging your own hole deeper.
to clear up stupid responses. i am a far right winger, always have been gringo. i have never voted for a dem, yes i still vote using the us embassy. but living long term out of the country in central america has been instructive. the same government idiocy that runs welfare also runs foreign policy. government is always corrupt and inefficient. you cannot have it both ways, that welfare is bad, but our foreign policy and military are well run. frankly, they all suck. so you people keep digging deeper. however i suggest you learn spanish.
@dave742
Feb 13, 2009 - 1:55 pm 17. cocollins:Your sentence makes no sense or I did not get it. If I do like Socialism (Marxism) then I may stay in the US but if I don’t, then I must leave along with 47% of the US population who rejected the Commie Messiah?
That’s what you say?
Are you so emboldened by the Magic Boy Messiah that you already started the purge by sending half of the population to far away gulag?
Cool off buddy, your #8B2323 colored Demigod is only 3 weeks old and your goons are not fully ready yet.
When I was working in southeastern Venezuela off and on from 2000 to 2004, there was a lot of local curiosity about the mosques which began popping up around Anaco and El Tigre. Historically, most of the people there were Catholic and it wasn’t exactly an immigration haven. It did seem peculiar but I wasn’t paying much attention to Venezuelan politics at the time. Maybe I should have. As for Chávez, he’s a buffoon that destroyed the Venezuelan economy and squashed the middle-class which had been growing prior to his political rise. I never understood why Caldera pardoned him.
Feb 13, 2009 - 2:37 pm 18. gcblues:according to reports one of those islands off venzuela, i cannot recall the name, is a training camp for al queda insertions into the usa.
simply google alquedda and venezuela and watch the hits. google punta del mono nicaragua while your at it. gringos seem to be in la la land
Feb 13, 2009 - 2:58 pm 19. Heh:Chavez is the venezuelan Perón, his damage will last for decades, even if he goes away now.
About the attacked synagogue, classic “Dictatorship for Dummies” stuff: send your goons to attack a scapegoat (Jews are always useful for that), then arrest some people and say that the “opposition planned it to make me look bad”. Or some variation thereof.
What’s incredible is that American fools such as Dave747 cheer for this disgusting chap. Unbelievable. But then again, they voted for Obama expecting “change”.
Feb 13, 2009 - 3:13 pm 20. Thomas:@Heh
Nothing incredible here: all the totalitarian ideologues, national or international Socialist demagogues have a large volunteer followers hell bent on using violence and genocide to crush the class enemy, the enemies of the People.
Dave747 is one of them who most likely would love this author from whom I quote below:
“We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system!”
Adolf Hitler in his May Day Speech, Berlin, 1 May 1927
Feb 13, 2009 - 7:34 pm 21. dave742:(quoted by John Toland in his book Adolf Hitler, 1976, p. 306.)
Thomas:
Feb 13, 2009 - 7:49 pm 22. dave742:And I also do not understand you. We have communication issues. Putin is warning the US about socialism. I was merely pointing out the irony of this, and commenting that if you do not like socialism, maybe you are living in the wrong country. It is hilarious that you think Obama has anything to do with socialism. In any other country in the world other than Israel, he would be far right wing. I did not vote for Obama.
I didn’t read the whole article until now. I didn’t realize the arrest of the synagogue perpetrators is really a Syrian conspiracy. Hilarious. Elias Farache, president of the Venezuelan-Israelite Association, “thanked the government for ‘returning peace and tranquility to our congregation’ and praised federal police ‘for apprehending the perpetrators’”.:
miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/901048.html
Maybe he’s part of the Syrian conspiracy as well. You can’t get entertainment this good if you pay for it.
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:19 pm 23. Patterson:“But then again, they voted for Obama expecting “change””
-Heh
Please don’t classify all Americans as voting for Obama. I can’t stand the guy and I’m seriously considering leaving the armed forces as to not be one of his tools. It’s bad enough that he is our commander in chief. Some of us still have our wits about us.
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:20 pm 24. Thomas:@ dave742
May be we have communication issues. It was unfortunate to conflate Putin with this thread because somebody like Putin – who as KGB agent was a purveyor of Marxism – ill suited to be an advocate of anything decent or wise.
Discounting bygone feudalism, today we have only Socialist or Capitalist economical theories in practice and the Scandinavian hybrid is an idiosyncratic approach that cannot be emulated elsewhere.
It’s is a well established fact and beyond dispute that Obama is representing the American Socialist Left and supported by people of Marxist persuasion: given the unpleasant connotation of the word Marxism, it’s now replaced by more benign sounding “newspeak” like “progressive”, “liberal” “social democrat” etc. encompassing the same premises.
Your assumption as per Obama is far right wing is to bold and fantastic to be answered by this poster; – you might be living in a different value system which is very distant from our comprehension..
Having said all that your adulation for Hugo the Communist Castro #2 asserts my conviction in regard to your Bolshevik ideological leaning.
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:12 pm 25. ked5:I am not mistaken for my belief is supported and shared by other poster on this forum.
“But then again, they voted for Obama expecting “change””
~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, they’re *getting* “change”. (just “change” for the worse). they also voted for “hope”. How’s that working out?
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:20 pm 26. vivo:2. Kate:
Sorry your country is in such a mess. I lived there in the 80’s and nothing has changed. Maybe different politically, but not much else. Some day it’ll change, hopefully for the better. Like when people learn how to produce their own food.
Feb 14, 2009 - 5:27 am 27. vivo:12. Thomas:
Sorry your dreams died.
And your assumptions about me are WAY OFF track.
Feb 14, 2009 - 5:32 am 28. dave742:Thomas:
“I am not mistaken for my belief is supported and shared by other poster on this forum.”
Your belief is shared by another poster on this forum, therefore it is proven. You have defeated me with your sound logic.
Feb 14, 2009 - 6:22 am 29. Thomas:@About the uneducated Chavez and his acolytes on this forum:
You can spawn your progressive (a.k.a.Marxist) Anti-American propaganda as much as you want but my aforementioned posts are well researched and historically valid.
(Queridos camaradas comunistas, tengo muchos conocimientos relativa a la situación alli – y America del Sur en general – porque he vivido alli.)
I had lived in So. America so I have lots of knowledge about it.
Feb 14, 2009 - 12:02 pm 30. Kate:27. vivo
Venezuela is not my country. When Chavez lets Venezuelans produce, then yes, maybe it will change. He has taken much of the producing capacity out of regular Venezuelans’ hands, either vis-a-vis expropriation of private property –don’t listen to what the PSFs say, my uncle and his family lost everything– or by regulating prices to the extent that it’s more profitable not to produce.
Feb 14, 2009 - 1:18 pm 31. Kate:dave472: before you continue with the snarky remarks re: the Syria-Venezuela connection, find out who Tarek El-Aissami and Carlos Aissami really are. Listen to some of Tarek’s speeches. Do a little research. Then, we’ll talk; until then, I have no time for willing ignorants.
Feb 14, 2009 - 1:29 pm 32. vivo:30. Kate:
The Venezuela I knew had very few industrialists who were obviously extremely rich. Some of their products had shoddy quality. The middle class Venezuelans loved high quality, but it was easier to import EVERYTHING. They snnobbily shunned local products, unless they had a foreign feel. There were many, many immigrants who “invaded” the country looking for jobs, just like the Mexicans and the USA. The nationalization effort seems to be geared to very large enterprises. The core of an economy is based on small entrepreneurs. I don’t know what they’re doing about it now. Dishonesty and corruption run rampart everywhere, so it’s very discouraging. That’s why crime is elevated: it’s easier. Look at Mexico. So Chavez is doing what he thinks is best. Again, is up to the Venezuelans to decide the course of their lives.
Feb 14, 2009 - 3:54 pm 33. Kate:32. vivo
I really don’t think that after 10 years of this so-called Revolution anyone who is a thinking person can really think that Chavez is doing what is going to be the best for the country. What Chavez himself thinks is a completely different story; I think he’s psychologically so screwed up that in a very twisted way he thinks that his actions are benefiting the country, but interestingly only views the country (el pueblo) as those who support him, particularly if they were marginalized in la Cuarta.
It may be easier, on some level, to import everything, but that presupposes that there is the money with which to import. Based on the complete mismanagement of PDVSA, particularly after the purge following the strike in 2002-2003, and consequently despite the highest oil prices coming after 2003, Venezuela’s money is running out much more quickly than expected. Endogenous production is virtually nonexistent. Even the collectives started by Chavez have been, by and large, abject failures.
You and I certainly agree on one point: it is up to Venezuelans, and Venezuelans alone, to decide what the course their country will take will be.
Feb 14, 2009 - 4:31 pm 34. boazhorribilis:Sulfur sniffing hound for Generalissimo For Life!
Feb 14, 2009 - 7:04 pm