In the 2000 Constitution promoted by Hugo Chavez, the concept of
Citizen’s Power was created. This supposedly independent body would be
composed of two existing institutions: The General Prosecutor and the
Comptroller and by the newly created People’s Ombudsman. These
independent powers, were supposed to be proposed by an open process,
which according to Venezuelan law has to start 90 days ahead of the day
the term ends for the position and if this process were not followed,
the National Assembly would choose these three independent positions. In
the 1999 Constituent Assembly there was no provision for how it would
be chosen the first time and since that Assembly dissolved the existing
Congress and the new Assembly had yet to be elected, Chavez and his
cohorts created a body with no legal basis, composed of 16 people,
which ruled the country between the time the Constituent Assembly was
finished and the time the new Assembly was elected. The National Assembly selected the representatives of the Citizen’s Power without following any of the procedures established in the Constitutional document, which had been approved earlier that year Clearly,
instead of appointing three true representatives of the people, who
would watch for their rights and the upholding of the law, they named
three unconditional Chavistas (one was the Vice-President!) who have
acted as such during the last almost seven years, absolutely submissive
to the Government and always ready to defend it, instead of the
citizens they are supposed to represent. It’s
hard to say who has been the most despicable of the three. The
Comptroller has been almost invisible in the face of the biggest
accusations and scandals of corruption in the country’s history and the
most blatant use of the Government’s resources by a political party.
The People’s Ombudsman has been the defender of the Government, absent
from the huge violations of human rights that have taken pace, from the
outright shooting of peaceful protesters to the disgusting blacklisting
of the Tascon/Maisanta/Chavez list. And then there is the General
Prosecutor who has allowed Chavistas to blatantly violate the laws,
while prosecuting all opposition figures that got in the way, while
failing miserably to prove his assertions and accusations in the most
visible cases, such as the Anderson case, which by the way, remains
unsolved. Well yesterday, Alfredo Romero, a
representative form NGO Vive and two other NGO’s, asked the Supreme
Court to force the “Citizens” Power to start the process of having
people propose who will replace them after their term expires on Dec. 20th. (or 22nd. I am not sure). The point is that such a process should have been started on Sept. 20th.
, Sixty days before the required thirty days for the National Assembly
to name them. (They can be reelected after their seven-year term
expires). They called it fraud
against the law, because the Constitution says that if this open and
democratic process is not carried out, then the National assembly can
go ahead and do it, without following the procedure of open proposals
by the citizens. The Prosecutor in his customary cynical fashion said
in early September that the process was delayed because they had been
unable to find any opposition figures to propose themselves. The
Prosecutor never explained how this “search” had taken place, given
that no public call for candidates has been made. Today,
the Prosecutor gave an outrageous press conference, in which after
saying he did not know Mr. Romero or his track record in the defense of
human rights, but later calls him a coupster, with that ease that we
have become accustomed to: You are plotting a coup if you are against
Chavez. Independent of whether Mr. Rodriguez knows people or not, the
Constitution, that piece of paper that they care so little about grants
them the right, yes the right, to propose anyone they want for each of
the three positions even if it may be a futile exercise in Chavista
pseudo-democracy. Even worse, the Prosecutor,
who happens to lead and “independent” power, proceeds to say that he
has “informed” the Assembly and the President that he has no plans to
continue. Why did he have to do this private update? Because he depends
on them, he is no more independent than the other clowns that are with
him in the People or citizen’s power. (He also made some sexist remarks which match his personality, but are outside the scope of this post)
So by now,
much like most things this Government does they can not satisfy the
law, so the Assembly will elect the new representatives of the citizens
without following the procedure established in the Constitution in
another unequivocal demonstration that this farcical revolution cares
little about either representative or participatory democracy. Thus,
we will get some clones or relatives of “our” current representatives
who will defend Chavez and his robolution for the next seven years. All in the name of the people, the autocrat and the robolution.
11:14:47 PM 
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