The spirit of revenge, or at least retaliation, is in the air after last month's elections for state and municipal elections in Venezuela. The government and its supporters appear to be of a mind to prevent newly-elected opposition officials from doing their jobs, and it doesn't look pretty.
The onslaught is coming from the very top. President Hugo Chávez issued a decree transferring control of 21 public hospitals in Miranda state from opposition Governor Henrique Capriles Radonski's incoming administration to the Health Ministry. The move was announced in a curt decree published in the Gazeta Oficial and no explanation was given. Capriles Radonski was given just 10 days to make the transfer, and he rejected the takeover as a "coup against decentralization."
Times were when the dispersal of power came near the top of Chávez' political agenda. But that was quite some time ago – and evidently no longer applies now that the opposition has made some inroads into power. Even as the decree headed towards the new governor, members of the city council of Metropolitan Caracas, now in an opposition majority, were prevented from entering the building that used to house the old Supreme Court in downtown Caracas.
This was where the city council, until now controlled by the Chávez camp, had regularly met for at least the last eight years. They found their way barred by gun-toting troops from the National Guard even before they'd been formally sworn in. Instead, they took their oaths at little ceremonies scattered across the capital. As they did, the search was on for alternative accommodation for their first meeting as a council, which was scheduled for Friday.
One suggestion was an auditorium on the campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. But such is the atmosphere in post-election Venezuela, this prompted thoughts about what sort of retaliation might be in store for the university authorities. The academic community and student body are viewed with hostility and suspicion by the government and many of its supporters. Time was students were a hotbed of the liberal left wing. No more. The government now sees the educated world as a hotbed of plots against the Bolivarian Revolution and all it stands for.
Offices used by the Metropolitan Mayor's Office were taken over by a group of its own workers amid rowdy scenes on Thursday. Their supposed cause was that the new city authorities were about to sack them or not pay them, although where they'd heard this wasn't clear. They were in no mood to discuss their gripes quietly. Appointed by Chavez acolytes, some made it abundantly clear that they simply didn't want to work for the new mayor, Antonio Ledezma of the opposition party, Alianza Bravo Pueblo.
At the election on November 23, Ledezma beat Aristóbulo Istúriz of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) by 52.4% to 44.97%, and a margin of more than 100,000 votes. Until then, the city, if not all its constituent municipalities had been under the control of the PSUV and other pro-Chávez parties. Now, the PSUV is in power in only one of the capital's five municipalities, Libertador in the west.
Witnesses of the disorder said the men had burst into the building, ordered the people inside to get out, shouted insults at women and then set about smashing windows. There was no reaction from the National Guard or the police to this threatening and damaging intrusion of public property, despite its blatant illegality.
Chávez meanwhile found himself at odds with the board at the National Electoral Council (CNE), which has long been accused of being biased in his favor. They said it was up to them, rather than him to decide when and if there would be a referendum on his bid to change the constitution. Earlier, CNE Director Vicente Díaz, the resident dissident on the board and a stickler for the rules, had remarked that in his view a new referendum on the reelection issue wasn't on because the proposal had already been defeated in an earlier referendum last December.
Chavez' reaction on being told "no" was to accuse Diaz of being a spokesman for the opposition and dismiss his accusations on the technical difficulties to carry out the referendum before the end of the first two months of 2009.
Chávez went on to call Diaz "immoral", telling him to "reflect", and then resign.
Díaz' reaction to that was simple and to the point. He had no intention of resigning and that he was not going to argue with the players he was responsible for umpiring. "The answer is that I will not argue with the politicians," he told reporters.
No comments:
Post a Comment