Repercussions of a Chavez stacked Congress in Venezuela

16.11.05 | Very few people, if that, have commented about the repercussions that a Venezuelan National Assembly chocked full of chavistas will have for the region. To date most of the agreements into which Venezuela has entered are illegal for these have not been approved by the Assembly, as mandated in certain cases by the constitution. Article 25 of the chavista constitution reads:

Thus, were Venezuela a functioning democracy, it would be perfectly legal, constitutional and easy, to nullify agreements, pacts, contracts or any other deal made to date by Hugo Chavez that are pernicious to the country. That, of course, is not the case for Hugo Chavez controls at will the oil income, the country's resources and all the branches of power are subjugated to his communist and stateless agenda. Instances whereby Chavez's dealmaking have been detrimental to our national interests are the purchase of bad debt from Argentina; the giving away oil-for-political-will; the arms build up, the alliance with the longest dictatorship of the Americas, the funding of revolutionary/terrorist movements across Latin America, etc. Taking the aforementioned into account, it came as a surprise that some of the beneficiaries of Chavez's largesse had not expressed the slightest desire to join his 'Bolivarian' alternative for the Americas. Furthermore, 28 COUNTRIES OUT OF 34 showed him the finger recently in Mar del Plata summit and buried his little revolutionary plan. What an ass and what a waste of our monies/resources.

Given that Fox from Mexico pitched hardball -offering to build refineries, electricity and gas networks in Central America- and led the pack of countries willing to continue negotiating the FTAA, Chavez -who lacked the courage to confront Fox when he was sitting right behind him in Mar del Plata- waited to get to Caracas to start insulting his Mexican counterpart. So typical Chavez... Fortunately Mexico behaved as any proud and sovereign nation would have done; recalled its ambassador to Venezuela, kicked the interventionist chavista Vladimir Villegas out of the country and its president said that the issue was closed. The best strategy, by far, to deal with neocommunist thugs like Chavez is simply to ignore their provocations, for it kills their ego.

Nevertheless Venezuela under Chavez advances inexorably to the next elections on December 4. Some weeks ago I heard straight from the electoral boss' mouth, aka Jorge Rodriguez, that cum 2006 all elections to be had in Venezuela will be completely independent from the technological point of view. During his speech in the Biometric's conference he mentioned repeatedly the "10 million" figure, which one has to assume will be the total number of voters in future elections to be divided between chavista and opposition forces. The chavista-controlled electoral council will not need to rig any election after the ruling by the Supreme Court in favour of the "Morochas" (slates). The historic sentence gave Chavez's MVR party the chance to present candidates uninominally and his parallel party UVE to fill slates. As a chavista sycophant put it "The MVR-UVE “twin” enabled pro-Chavez forces to win more seats than if voters had just voted for the MVR because winning MVR candidates would have counted against the proportional vote the party obtained. By running individual candidates on a different party ticket, pro-Chavez forces were able to win more seats than they otherwise would have."

It is a given that Chavez will win the 2/3 majority he needs to ammend all sorts of laws without too much of a hassle. Once that's achieved changes to the constitution ought to be expected, especially the striking of article 350:

Any regime, legislation or authority that violates democratic values, principles and guarantees or encroaches upon human rights? Isn't that a definition of the Chavez regime? In any case the repercussions for the region will be dire for from January onwards all revolutionary acts shall have the 'democratic' approval of the 'elected' lackeys of Hugo Chavez. There is gossip that the Venezuela-Cuba federation tops the legislative agenda. Chavez's power and control will grow exponentially; any resemblance to accountability shall perish. Venezuelan oil money will flood the terrorist and revolutionary movements of the continent. Drug trafficking will be bolstered. Expect an influx of undesirable elements -read terrorists- to land in the country -or be given Venezuelan citizenship as is often the case- to get provisioned and sent to other countries armed to the teeth. In sum, democracies in Latin America will be dealt with a tremendous blow on December 4th 2005, which some of them shall not withstand. 500+ million people will suffer the consequences of Hugo Chavez's megalomania.

Senator Dick Lugar referred recently to the country as "unreliable suppliers such as Venezuela" (sic). The term unreliable, an understatement, need be applied not only to energy issues but to democratic ones.