Venezuela’s Supreme court has said that he doesn’t need to swear in (even though the constitution says so) and that because he was reelected he goes on with his previous presidency (due to continuity) until he can be sworn in because, get this, being sick and unable to return to the country doesn’t count as a temporary absence due to the fact that he himself asked for this indefinite absence and no matter how much time it takes he would be able to swear in at the appropriate time.
Venezuela’s constitution says that if the president-elect can’t swear in the president of congress has to call election in 30 days.
Continuity is the principle that certain public servants keep their posts until the replacement is named even of they have resigned.
So far as I can tell, the “within 30 days” thing only applies if he’s found to be “permanently unavailable”. The latter term requires the National Assembly to declare him as such.
I don’t see anything there that makes me think the Venezula Supreme Court made the wrong decision.
The reasoning that there is continuity from the previous term and that he doesn’t need to be sworn in because he continues in office until he swears in is, at the very least, stretching the concept of continuity.
Saying that he isn’t absent and temporarily incapacitated because he said he was going to be be out is also a bit off.
It was purely a political decision brought by the fact that everything is set up for Cahvez and only him.
I thought that the solution was tht the Supreme Court justices go to Cuba and swear him in. The fact that they stretched the law tells me that Hugo is in deeeeeep shit health-wise.
Its close to how things work in the States as well. The alternative is to have there be no President for a while if the Prez can’t swear in, which is generally considered a bad thing.
Anyways, it would be massively inefficent to hold an entire new election just because the Prez couldn’t physically make it to the Supreme Court building on a particular day. Your claim otherwise is what caused me to look up what the Constitution actually said (its around Article 233, if anyones interested), since it seems like it would be so ridiculous.
Its relevant because the Constitution requires the Prez to ask before spending more then five days out-of-country. If he hadn’t made such a request, there would be a stronger argument for declaring him temporarily incapacitated.
But that’s not really relevant anyways, because even if found to be temporarily incapacitated, that still doesn’t trigger new elections, it just means his VP takes over for 90 days. The only trigger for new elections is if he dies, resigns or the National Assembly finds him permanently absent. None of those things happened.
Nope. Its a pretty straight-forward reading of the Constitution. The Supreme Court might be in Chavez’s pocket, but that’s not really relevant here. A neutral body would’ve ruled the same way.
If he dies that will trigger a new election. The VP only serves as Prez during the interm. So if he’s as sick as you think, it hardly matters what the Supreme Court decided.
So, if Chavez does go, what happens to his Bolivarian Revolution?
Given a few massive strikings of opposition voters from the eligible rolls here, a couple of massacres there, some car bombs of dissenting figures over here, and the fact that the few organizations dumb enough to get snookered into certifying the “fairness” of the elections agreed to do so from hotel rooms in Caracas without being allowed to actually monitor any of the vote-counting, yeah, it’s a wonderful democracy they have going.
-
Cites? Especially for the last bit. I don’t think UN observers are so easily snookered.
-
Put another way: Even if all that were entirely true, there is nevertheless no reasonable doubt that the majority of Venezuelans have the government they want, for better or for worse. Whatever Chavez is, he ain’t Saddam Hussein.
Cite?
Cite?
Yeah, that’s what I figured you meant. :rolleyes: Not a sham capitalist democracy, a true People’s Democracy like the USSR.
Your really responding to a request for cites by accusing the people asking of being Communists?
I’ll provide the cites in a little while if he really wants them, but he’s already put in a “even if Chavez is literally murdering his political opponents, that’s fine with me because he represents the mystic spirit of the Venezuelan people better than any imperialist notion of ‘counting’ or ‘majorities’ ever could” escape clause, so I’m not sure it will make much of an impression.
Whatever Chavez is, he ain’t Stalin or Castro, either.
No, but he is Huey Long and Richard Daley. Venezuela may be a democracy but it’s a heavily rigged democracy in which the elected President arranges to give himself advantages over his opponents.
That’s certainly my impression - the elections themselves are fair but given that the opposition have a much more limited range of media to speak from versus the state-influenced mouthpieces, and given the grand government largesse fueled [sic] by oil revenues, it’s hardly a level playing field.
Article 231: The candidate elected shall take office as President of the Republic on January 10 of the first year of his constitutional term, by taking an oath before the National Assembly. If for any supervening reason, the person elected President of the Republic cannot be sworn in before the National Assembly, he shall take the oath of office before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.
He didn’t swear in and there is a gaping hole in the constitution as to what to do. Continuity is not a concept for elected offices.
*Article 233: The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavail able to serve during the first four years of this constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive-Vice President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
In the cases describes above, the new President shall complete the current constitutional term of office. If the President becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the last two years of his constitutional term of office, the Executive Vice-President shall take over the Presidency of the Republic until such term is completed*
The president is in another country and hasn’t said a thing in days, possibly dying; this is the guy who would appear on TV every fucking second he could. Article 233 talks about setting a medical and the Supreme Court hasn’t and will not, because they know the result and they is no successor for Chavez
Also, voting doesn’t mean democracy.
[shrug] It seems to be a place where the opposition always has a much better chance than ever opposition had in Mexico during the PRI ascendancy 1929-2000, and the U.S. never had much problem with that.
I don’t speak for the entire US and I’m not really thrilled at how democracy is playing out in a lot of Latin America countries (heck, I’m not that thrilled at how it’s currently working in the US). I’m just saying that Chavez has been in a position to heavily stack the deck in his favor and he’s taken advantage of it, so the idea of “free and fair” elections in Venezuela is one that should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
I don’t see anyone claiming that Mexico was conducting fair elections during the PRI period either.