Tempest in a teapot, and a great relief. I’d rather think somebody in Venezuelan intelligence is cooking up this kind of thing for propaganda purposes than think somebody in my government is actually doing it.
BTW – did the referendum pass or not? Last report I heard was before the polls closed.
Reports say ‘too close to call’. My sense of whimsy is visualizing people stuffing boxes as fast as they can.
So, time to see if it’s all America’s fault.
Best thing that could happen to HC was losing that referendum. He’s already got as much power as he needs to put forth his agenda through ordinary legislation and the legitimacy to do so (remember, he was freely elected, reelected and survived a recall) under the extant constitution (freely approved). It’s left to see what his attitude will be, whether he’s gracious though persistent, or whether he lashes back.
But this was overreaching. Quite honestly, if you are really a believer in democracy, you MUST be willing to accept the chance that some time down the road the people may freely chose a new government whose policies will reverse yours. And if you are a believer in constitutionalism, you have to be willing to live with limits to power and compromise solutions, and not just change the rules when they get too confining for you. What makes a policy a lasting one is that society comes to see it as one of its values, not that you got “nuh-uh, you can’t ever undo this!” written into a constitution… because, a constitution can be amended all over again… or even dumped and replaced with a new one altogether (BOTH which things have happened since Hugo got into office, so he should know better!).
Not that I don’t expect Hugo to continue to kick out/shut down/nationalize news outlets and/or Spanish/USAmerican/Colombian businesses who “do not observe their social responsibility to the people”; or to proudly spout off ignorance; but that’s what he does in the normal course of affairs, we sort of expect it.
But will he embargo oil to the U.S.?
The trigger for that was if the opposition cried “fraud”, which I find unlikely at this point.