It
is a coup, because the proposed reform is absolutely and completely
illegal because it alters fundamental principles of the Constitution
written by a Chavismo dominated Constituent assembly in 2000. These
fundamental principles are contained in the first nine articles of
the country’s Constitution, which while not being altered in the proposed reform, are certainly modified by the changes that will be voted on in a month.
Simply
put, making Venezuela a socialist state, suspending the alternability
granted by the Constitution when allowing Chávez to be reelected
indefinitely and allowing Chavez to create regional “territories” at
will, all represent matters, which require a Constituent Assembly and
are thus illegal and represent a coup against Venezuela’s
Constitutional order.
There many other
illegalities, such as the fact that in the end it became a farce of
changes which were not discussed or consulted with the people as
required by law. On top of the 33 articles proposed by Chavez, the
Assembly added its own 25 after the law did not allow new ones to be
discussed. It also added some 15 transient articles, turning the
trampling of the rule of law into a true massacre of Constitutional
order.
The whole process and reform turned out to
be so grotesque, that Chavez lost the backing of the largest political
party besides his own, when Podemos leaders simply refused to join such
an absurd proposal.
CNE
Director Vicente Diaz did not vote in favor of taking the proposal to
referendum, saying that the proposed reform is illegal and at the very
least the Electoral Board should have requested an opinion from the
country’s Supreme Court.
And it was the silence
of that Court which made the whole process bizarre, as the Court has
yet to rule on any of the injunctions and suits brought in front of it
to stop the process. In fact, even on the issue of whether the reform
should or not be voted as a block the Court has been derelict in not
ruling to protect the rights of Venezuelans. It was Chavez who made an
about face on the issue, magnanimously allowing it to be voted as
blocks, but of course, defining himself what those blocks should be,
rather than the interpretation that a group of voters could define it.
Thus,
it was a very dark day today, in which one of the most sordid processes
in the country’s democratic history was completed. The man that reached
power by being critical of decisions being made by politicians in smoke
filed rooms, has single-handedly imposed his illegal will and staged
the final needed coup on the country’s Constitution, so that he can
impose his dictatorial and autocratic rule on all Venezuelans.
