Chavez Expropriated American-Style Mall Built With All Legal Permissions in Venezuela

The tale of President Hugo Chávez' decision to expropriate the Sambil shopping mall in La Candelaria in the Libertador municipality of west Caracas gets more convoluted by the day. From the start, the owners of the mall say they put up the building after following the correct legal procedures and obtaining permission and approval from the authorities. The first reaction to this was a flurry of accusations and counter-accusations between senior figures in the president's ruling United Socialistr Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

The PSUV or its predecessor, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), were in control of Libertador at the time, and the capital as a whole was also in the hands of Chavez lieutenant Metropolitan Mayor Juan Barreto. Now, Juan José Rodríguez, a member of the Libertador municipal council – which is still under PSUV control – has confirmed that the owners did indeed receive approval for the project. As head of the urban committee at the council, Rodríguez is in a position to find out. According to him, official permission for the project was granted in August 2005, when an architect called Maria Carrera was in charge of urban planning at the municipality.

Neither were the owners of the mall, Constructora Sambil, the first to draw up plans to use the same plot of land to build a shopping mall. Before them, the land was owned by Banco Mercantil, one of the four big commercial banks in Venezuela.

At one stage, Mercantil thought of building a commercial and residential complex on the same spot, but later abandoned this plan, reportedly because it didn't consider the economic circumstances auspicious. Whether Mercantil harbored misgivings about the project getting expropriated, worries that would now look prescient to say the least, isn't known.

A better possible explanation behind Chavez' sudden decision to take the mall that was under construction for two years has also begun to make the rounds at connected dinner tables in Caracas: Revenge. It appears that some of the families behind the Sambil projects were large supporters of the opposition and, in particular, winning Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma, who gave Chavez' candidates a huge thrashing.