Thanks Feathers!
Last week I had suggested that given the outrageous promises and
offers coming from autocrat Hugo Chavez, it just meant that the numbers
in his private polls were not looking very good. Not that I think that
he may lose in the referendum on the Constitution, but when you adjust
abstention in a poll and the numbers change dramatically, you start to
worry. And that is probably what the numbers are saying, that with high
abstention, the reform passes, but if too many people decide to go to
the polls things could get touchy for the autocrat.
That something is up was confirmed yesterday, as, despite Chavez’ earlier demand that not one comma be changed
in the reform document he pulled in his now historical and orgasmic all
nighter of non democratic inspiration, which was quickly followed by
two swift approvals by the National Assembly of the three required, now
all of a sudden the President of the Assembly is willing to change Art.
115, one of the most controversial, in order to reduce both criticisms
and fears by the voters. The new Art. 115, which has been analyzed extensively in Daniels’ blog,
essentially removed the ability of people to “dispose” of their
property, a word that was remove from the new article 115, while only
leaving the right to use the property, while at the same time
restricting it dramatically. Quoting from Daniel’s blog: “Also,
since private property is restricted to “user and consumer goods and
legitimately acquired means of production” it includes neither land
(unless it were a “legally acquired means of production”) nor
intellectual property, unproductive land and real estate (even the land
one lives on) and personally produced works of art could never
constitute one’s own private property.”
The
initial reaction by pro-Chavez legislators was the staunch defense of
the new article. The defense was silly, mostly based on the extremely
weak argument that “The basic rights of private property would remain
to be defined in the commercial code, so there is nothing to worry
about”. This became the “word” sent down from the higher ups and as
many as four Deputies of the National Assembly, used the same phrase,
give and take one word, in their staunch defense of the changes in Art.
115.
The
problem is that this argument is not only weak, but is outright stupid.
First, the commercial code could still have it defined in it, but if
the new Constitution limited the definition it would be essentially
trivial to have the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court declare
the Commercial Code unconstitutional. But even more ominous, one should
not forget that the Code itself will be changed once the new
Constitution is approved by way of a decree under the Enabling Bill. In
the words of Chavez: “ The code is over one hundred years old and we
have to adapt it to a socialist economy”. What better adaptation could
there have been than to also remove wide private property rights from
the Code? This is precisely what has unnerved so many.
While
we don’t know what private polls are telling the President, we do know
that various aspects of the reform lack the support of the majority and
this is not limited to the indefinite reelection of the President, the
main (and only?) driver of the reform. In fact, in the latest
Hinterlaces poll, 57% of the people backed political party Podemos for
standing up against the proposed reform, with only 21% disagreeing with
it and 62% disagreeing with Chavez accusation that doing this
represented an act of treason as Chavez charged. The same poll yielded
that 47% of those polled was against the reform, with 37% backing it.
Clearly some of the people are no longer being fooled by the intentions
of the autocrat.
The Government did not help
itself this week either, when it distributed apartments to poor people
in the “Alba de Caracas” buildings, but those assigned the apartments
were not given title to the apartments, as has been the tradition in
these cases, but rather just the right to use it. There is actually a
reason for this, as the Government does not want people to turn around
and sell the apartments. This actually has a simple solution, attach a
mortgage to the property with a symbolic low monthly payment, which
would stop anyone from selling it unless the mortgage is paid up.
The
only question is how far Chavez and his cohorts are willing to go in
order to have the indefinite reelection approved. There are too many
articles that can be attacked if an effective campaign against the
proposed Constitutional reform were waged. As an example, there are at
least eleven, yes eleven
articles, that rather than the claimed “more power to the people”,
actually concentrate even more power on the autocrat. This would be a
simple message to send to the people in organized fashion.
The
big question is whether the Government will be willing to gamble if the
numbers were going against it and still go for a vote. While I doubt
it, it would require the creation of a completely new strategy for the
robolution given the wide-ranging legislative changes that Chavez wants
to impose before July 2008 when the Enabling Bill expires. These
changes were supposed to be framed within the new Constitution. Chavez
needs these changes, but more and more Venezuelans are beginning to see
the lack of accomplishments by the robolution as the signs of abuse and
corruption become more evident daily.
The only
question is whether the opposition will or not organize itself for
this. So far, indications are that while there seems to be more unity,
there is no common theme to stopping the reform. It is encouraging that
no major political organization is asking for people to abstain, but
more is needed to stop the reform.
The indications are that the opportunity is there; it is just a matter of doing it!
Simply put: Say NO! to the reform.
9:40:37 PM 
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