Venezuela: PJ Julio Borges offers MVR olive branch ... or gauntlet?

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

At a press conference Primero Justicia (PJ) National Assembly (AN) deputy, Julio Borges has challenged his Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR)  "colleagues" to draw up an AN agenda that really helps Venezuela advance and avoid a parliamentary crisis. 

It is not clear whether Borges, who studied in Oxford (UK), is holding out an olive branch or just trying some free PR to get one better than his opposition colleagues, who seem to have abandoned the recall referendum as top priority for the usual shortcuts or quick fixes to topple President Hugo Chavez Frias. 

Borges criticizes the government bench's agenda as "saying nothing to the country ... the Anti-Terrorist, Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), and Media Content laws are not priority." PJ, Borges insists, is pushing for the passing of an employment protection, national production, national police, and barrio slums laws. 

When Parliament opens on Tuesday, PJ will motion for the employment protection, national production and national police laws. Borges says all the current laws are protecting the few privileged Venezuelans that are lucky to have jobs and warns that the government has condemned national companies that have been made bankrupt by importing products, violating Andean Union (CAN) agreements. 

The government's alphabetization program is criticized because of the number of Cuban teachers that have been employed in detriment to Venezuelan professionals.

Borges did not specify whether his party would enter in alliance with MVR, if the latter accepts PJ's proposal or whether his opposition colleagues would back the proposals. It appears that PJ has placed the recall referendum on the backburner, despite an earlier pledge to collect signatures before August 19.