Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez marked 10 years in power on Saturday, urging Venezuelans to pass a constitutional amendment to let him seek reelection indefinitely, as political foes closed ranks to derail the move.
“We have agreed to get the amendment campaign going in the National Assembly,” Chavez promised thousands of jubilant supporters waving Venezuelan and Cuban flags.
“Signatures will be collected to support it. We are going to celebrate Christmas on the campaign trail, on the warpath,” he said.
In his speech, the leftist Chavez, a flamboyant former paratrooper, said his 1998 election “opened the door to a new historic era” for the oil-rich, but still poverty-plagued South American country.
National Assembly lawmakers are almost all Chavez loyalists, as the opposition boycotted 2005 legislative elections in a bid to delegitimize the body.
A constitutional amendment can be proposed by 30 percent of the assembly’s lawmakers. Alternatively, one can be proposed directly by 15 percent of voters, or by the president in the Council of Ministers.
To win approval however the amendment must be approved in a referendum, which Chavez has said should be held by February.
“Just my hunch, but I think we are going to get it done by a large majority,” Chavez told supporters.
He argued that unlimited reelection was needed “to successfully complete, with no possible backtracking, the revolutionary process that now has profound ideological content: Bolivarian socialism.”
It was a reference to Chavez’s purported inspiration by the work of independence-era hero Simon Bolivar.
“We must be victorious on the path of the revolution. Only with a socialist revolution does Venezuela have a future. That is the path,” Chavez said, taking a much clearer cue from the everyday rhetoric of his communist Cuban allies.
Opposition party members made it plain that they would not make it easy for Chavez.
“We are preparing to fight on all fronts — in the courts and in the streets,” said Julio Borges, of the opposition center-right Justice First party.
Chavez, whose populist rhetoric and tough talk long has won the support of most Venezuelans, only a year ago saw the first challenges to his leftist revolution surface, and is scrambling to contain any losses. Meanwhile, soaring oil prices that had kept his coffers overflowing have slid.
Last December, a referendum that sought to declare Venezuela a socialist state and allow unlimited reelection failed, dealing Chavez his first major defeat at the ballot box.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,