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Editorial Commentary
VenEconomy: The other front
While Hugo Chávez has unilaterally initiated a conflict on the international front, sticking his oar in a bilateral affair between Colombia and Ecuador without being asked, on the domestic front he is moving steadily ahead with imposing his project of the so-called 21st century socialism.
Unfortunately, this new attack is going unnoticed by the vast majority of Venezuelans, overwhelmed as they are by high inflation, shortages and, now, to top it all, the confrontation with Colombia.
Last week, Planning and Development Minister Haiman El Troudi revealed to the media that laws and regulations were being resuscitated in priority economic, tax and financial areas for the “2007-2013 Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the Nation.” The 51 minutes it took El Troudi to give an outline of the measures were sufficient to reveal that the government intends to implement through this plan much of what was rejected via the constitutional referendum held on December 2, 2007, and which, according to the present Constitution, may not be submitted again during the current presidential term.
For example, he announced that the Code of Commerce is to be amended under the Special Powers Law, the idea being to develop the concepts and scopes of the five different types of property. He said that the aim is to expand the definition of property so as to create direct and indirect social property and also to introduce variations on private “tenure” such as collective property and cooperatives. It should be remembered that this modification to the concept of property was contemplated in Article 115 of the proposed constitutional reform that was resoundingly rejected by the population, as it reduced private property to the ownership of the shirt on one’s back and a couple of work tools.
The other law they are attempting to amend using the special powers granted the President is the Territorial Organization Law so that it can be used to coordinate the action of the development bodies with decentralized and interconnected entities and with the regional governments. Another thing the proposed changes to the law seek, according to El Troudi, is to leverage “special zones or productive districts.”
It would seem that the Government and El Troudi could not care less that the New Geometry of Power, as they called that change to the organization of the territory proposed in the constitutional reform, was also rejected at the December 2 referendum. The people, the sovereign, said that they did not want changes in the structure of the territory, which means that the present structure should remain as it is, with the territory divided up into states, municipalities and parishes and not into special zones by type of production or activity, as the government wants. If this change is approved under the Special Powers Law, it will be a harsh blow for the political and territorial decentralization of the population and would concentrate even more power at Miraflores.
It is clear that Chávez and his subordinates will not desist in their intentions to impose their brand of communism on Venezuelans. Now they are seeking to do it by the illegal, dictatorial route of the Special Powers Law, knowing that the acolytes sitting on the benches of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice will not move a finger to prevent this violation of the people’s express wishes.
VenEconomy is a Venezuela's leading specialized publisher in the economic and financial area. VenEconomy's Points of View on the issues of the day, as seen by VenEconomy during the last week. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by VenEconomy, on 03/05/2007. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers.
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Petroleumworld News 03/06/08
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