Venezuela's Congress moves out to El Calvario steps as opposition brawls

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, June 06, 2003 By: David Coleman

In an exotic twist to democratic reform, Venezuela's Congress has moved out to the El Calvario steps just a few blocks away from the Capitolio after opposition legislators began to throw papers and fought with each other in the body of parliament.  Bemused Venezuelan TV viewers saw how politicians lost their cool and any assumption of respectability in brawls featured on live television as National Assembly (AN) officers tried in vain to quell the unruly behavior.

A majority vote concluded that proceedings should be removed to the park after opposition thugs tried to prevent the passage of parliamentary reform proposals.  The Legislature moved to convene parliamentary proceedings under a hastily erected marquee after filibustering opposition deputies refused to allow a democratic vote to take place on which committee decides which laws should reach the floor.

National Assembly (AN) president Francisco Ameliach opened lawful sessions of the El Calvario Congress, broadcast live on TV, saying "if we have to, we'll have congress wherever, whenever.''   As fuming opposition deputies held sway without a quorum in the capitol building, Congressman Juan Barreto viewed the establishment of a legislative quorum on the El Calvario steps and said "we were forced to move out to the people ... the coup-mongering and fascist opposition tried to provoke violence.''

The right royal rout will probably delay approval of a new National Electoral College (CNE) board of directors, a preliminary step towards hold a revocatory referendum later this year. Although the government and opposition leaders had signed an OAS-brokered peace agreement last week, the opposition seems intent on disrupting the Constitutionally mandated process which will kick-off only after August 19 when President Hugo Chavez Frias' governing mandate reaches it's halfway point.

At that stage (after August 19) a signature campaign is required to get a referendum proposal off the ground ... and the CNE must first update its register of voters to get rid of thousands of fraudulent registrations, some including voters who are long-since dead.

International monitors must then be appointed to review the signature-gathering process which, if a similar venture in February is anything to go by, will be riddled with forgeries and falsifications as both sides of the political barricades in Venezuelan politics seek advantage.

Vitali Meschoulam, a Eurasia Group analyst quoted by Bloomberg in New York, opines "it's quite clear that Chavez is intent on gaining power at all costs in all aspects of Venezuelan life ... he has control of international reserves ... he has control of PDVSA ... he's basically shut the opposition down by signing an agreement that says let's do what's in the Constitution.''

Commentators in Caracas are still trying to puzzle out what Meschoulam could mean as being negative about the President signing an OAS-brokered agreement which stipulates that government must be conducted according to the Constitution...

Meanwhile. Chavez Frias supporters are claiming that the opposition is trying illegally to change procedural rules.  The President agrees saying "the desperate and irresponsible opposition tried to sabotage congress ... patriotic deputies are trying to approve laws necessary for the country.''

Chavez opponents are attempting to hammer home a Goebbelesque proposal that the revocatory referendum must be held in August without reference to Constitutional  or parliamentary procedures ... essentially they want the same as rebel business executive Pedro Carmona Estanga demanded at the start of his military-civilian dictatorship after the April 11, 2002 coup d'etat.  That time, the opposition was kicked out of the Presidential Palace by the Venezuelan masses after Carmona Estanga moved immediately to dissolve Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution in one fell swoop.