Venezuelan opposition demonstrate against Chavez's statutory decrees

by rahul | August 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Caracas, Venezuela, 30 August 2008. The Venezuelan opposition staged a demonstration at Chacaito, central Caracas, to reject Chávez's statutory decrees. According to local newspaper El Universal, opposition members tried to "collect signatures to endorse a request to the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss in a plenary session the alteration of constitutional order in Venezuela by President Hugo Chávez after the enactment of 26 decree-laws that could be contrary to the Venezuelan Constitution". However, it is unlikely the OAS would attend to any request without the prior exhaustion of local remedies. This demonstration shows once more it is ill prepared to confront Chavez politically.

Another misleading tactic but aimed at an international audience is epitomised by an article by opposition historian Margarita Lopez Maya. In an interview on Monday 25 August 2008 published by El Universal, Lopez Maya stated she had not read the 26 decree-laws but concluded that they were not appropriate. In an English version of her interview, such comments were omitted from the translation as follows:

What is the impact on the society of the passage of 26 decree-laws by President Hugo Chávez? All of this is very similar to the 2001 situation. It seems to me that the society as a whole was not consulted, and this is inconsistent with the Law on Participatory Democracy. As for the contents (…), if the Constitution was intended to have 69 articles that were refused, I think that the contents of such articles should not be released through these laws.

In reaction with such weak opposition, President Chavez wins battle ground :

Chávez: The opposition loses time: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Wednesday, August 27 that dissenting leaders are losing their time by appealing to foreign agencies to claim that the 26 presidential directives issued under the enabling law violate the Constitution. "They are losing your time by going, as it were, to the Organization of American States. The OAS has nothing to do with a country's laws. This is an absolutely internal affair," he said. He regretted that Leopoldo López, the leader of opposition Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party, and other opposition representatives showed up at the Mercosur Parliament Commission on Human Rights and other international bodies to talk about the issue of politicians barred from elected public office.

Sources: El Universal, Globovision, El Nacional,

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