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Chavez Gets Legislative Powers
Venezuela’s National Assembly on Wednesday granted President Hugo Chavez powers to rule by decree for a year and a half. Chavez’s supporters say the law will carry through reforms which will make Venezuela a socialist country. Echoing the Venezuelan opposition, U.S. President George W. Bush mentioned a threat to democracy in the country.
The new law grants yet new powers to Hugo Chavez who already has a grip on the country’s economy. The Venezuelan Congress held the vote in the central square in Caracas, virtually sanctioning the direct president rule. The result of the vote was easy to predict after opposition parties boycotted the 2005 congressional election.
Hugo Chavez sees the law as the corner stone in the transition to the Venezuelan model of “socialism of the 21st century”. Mr. Chavez is seeking indefinite re-election through an amendment to the Constitution. He is also forging a single party to lead his radical reforms. The constitutional reform is, however, yet to be approved at the people’s referendum at the end of the year.
In his reforms, Mr. Chavez tries to force through nationalizations of such key industries as energy and telecommunications. But the Venezuelan leader pledges that each decree he will pass will be checked against the Constitution.
The opposition is deaf to these promises. Drawing parallels between the enabling law and European fascism in the 1930s, the Tal Cual newspaper headlined its cover story “Heil, Hugo!”.
U.S. President George Bush made it clear Thursday that Washington would not sit back and watch socialist reforms underway in Venezuela. “I’m concerned about the Venezuelan people,” President Bush said in an interview with Fox News. “I’m concerned about the undermining of democratic institutions. And we’re working hard to help, to prevent that from happening.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 02, 2007
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