Turnout strong for referendum to give Chavez more power

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Title: Turnout strong for referendum to give Chavez more power
Date: December 2nd, 2007
Source: CBC.ca
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/02/venezuela.html


Article Summary:

The national refrendum for constitutional reforms was held in Venezuela today. Put forth by the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the refrendum's key features are: eliminating limits on the president's term, allowing the president to handpick provincial and municipal leaders, creating a minimum six-hour work day, lowing the voting age from 18 to 16, giving the president control over the central bank, creating communal property, and allowing the government to censor media if it declares a political emergency. If ratified, this would indisputably give a much greater political power to Chavez, who insisted that these constitutional changes were necessary in order to complete the country's transition to a socialist state. Although the refrendum result has not yet been announced, the recent polls have shown that the majority of the Venezuelans were opposing such changes. In fact, tens of thousands of protestors protested against the refrendum last week. The Venezuelans' opposition to the refrendum is due to the unprecedented shortage of food. A grocer even said that, "we have oil, but we don't have food, and we can't eat oil."


Byun's Opinion:

In my opinion, Hugo Chavez has been the most strong, charismatic, influencial, socialist, and anti-USA leader in Latin America. Declaring himself as the champion of the poor, Chavez came to power in 1998. With Venezuela's oil as a weapon, Chavez gained popularity among the Venezuelans for openly criticizing the United States and influencing the world politics. He, in fact, has been the leader of the anti-US intervention movements in Latin America. And now, he is trying to consolidate and secure his power, by making such dictatorial changes to the constitution.

Chavez's rise to power reminds me of that of Hitler. They both took the advanatge of their hostile views on foreign nations to gain popularity. Hitler cried for the revenge against the British Empire and France for defeating Germany in the First World War, and for the reversal of the Treaty of Versailies. For Chavez, the target was the United States, a country that intervened in the Latin American politics since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

As well, their methods of consolidating power are very similar. Unlike popular beliefs, Hitler's establishment of the Third Reich was completely constitutional; he won the enough number of parliament seats to change the constitution to make the Nazis as the only legimate party in Germany. To win the parliament elections, Hitler used the fear of communism, economic recovery, anti-semitism, and revenge. Chavez is doing the same thing. He called a refrendum to make constitutional changes, which would give him the right to be the president for life. To win enough votes to ratify his amendments to the constitution, Chavez included popular features such as the six-hour work day. So the voters would vote for the totalitarian amendments in order to get the socialist programs they want. Chavez also lowered the minimum voting age from 18 to 16. Because he's popular among the young people, lowering the voting age requirements would give him more votes.

Yet, this refrendum seems very dangerous to me. If ratified, this would give Chavez the power to remain in power forever, the power to handpick provincial and municipal leaders, and even the power to censor media! Chavez's supporters argue that these measures are necessary to complete Venezuela's transition to a socialist state. And maybe it is true. But considering the amount of power the Venezuelan government will be having, this reminds me of the Soviet Union. In fact, one of the refrendum's features is the creation of communal property!

In the past, the Latin Americans' protests against the American intervention always led them to socialist revolutions. In Cuba, for example, the anti-USA sentiments established the Castro's communist government. Venezuela under Chavez is pretty much going through the same process.

I can't predict whether Chavez's constitutional reforms would be beneficial for the Venezuelans or not. What concerns me more is the spread of Chavezism among the other Latin American governments, which would eventually give a birth to another world power, the Latin American union.
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