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News from Venezuela
23 January 2003 13:36This message is from a friend of mine in Venezuela:
"Just wanted to tell you all that five minutes ago, officially, I am living in a dictatorship.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the referendum here in Venezuela is illegal.
This referendum was contemplated in our constitution. The rules were pretty simple: the people must present signatures representing 15% of
the population registered to vote and the question to be ask had to have a non-obligatory character (sorry. my English legalese is pretty poor.
My point is that the question must not be an order, as this referendum was in no way obligatory for the government to follow).
More than 20% of the people signed the petition. The question was "Do you want the president of Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, to
VOLUNTARILY resign from his mandate?".
The government since the beginning said that they would not allow such referendum.
They denied the money. So a bank account was open to get donations. In 2 days they raised more than $50 million.
They said that the army was not going to protect the voting centers (as they usually do). The people organized their own force to protect them.
They said that they were not going to open the schools (traditional place for the voting centers). So the neighbors of those schools said
that they were ready to lend their homes.
And now they said that it is unconstitutional.
To my friends in other countries, please, who might ask "But why you just don't wait until the August referendum, where it is written in the
constitution that they might ask directly the president to step down?", all I have to said is that, judging from its behavior on this
referendum, there will not be any voting in Venezuela in many, many years.
Peace to you all.
Going underground. again."
"Just wanted to tell you all that five minutes ago, officially, I am living in a dictatorship.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the referendum here in Venezuela is illegal.
This referendum was contemplated in our constitution. The rules were pretty simple: the people must present signatures representing 15% of
the population registered to vote and the question to be ask had to have a non-obligatory character (sorry. my English legalese is pretty poor.
My point is that the question must not be an order, as this referendum was in no way obligatory for the government to follow).
More than 20% of the people signed the petition. The question was "Do you want the president of Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, to
VOLUNTARILY resign from his mandate?".
The government since the beginning said that they would not allow such referendum.
They denied the money. So a bank account was open to get donations. In 2 days they raised more than $50 million.
They said that the army was not going to protect the voting centers (as they usually do). The people organized their own force to protect them.
They said that they were not going to open the schools (traditional place for the voting centers). So the neighbors of those schools said
that they were ready to lend their homes.
And now they said that it is unconstitutional.
To my friends in other countries, please, who might ask "But why you just don't wait until the August referendum, where it is written in the
constitution that they might ask directly the president to step down?", all I have to said is that, judging from its behavior on this
referendum, there will not be any voting in Venezuela in many, many years.
Peace to you all.
Going underground. again."
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