VenEconomy: Maduro’s New Enabling Law is the True ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune March 16, 2015
On Sunday, the parliamentary majority of Venezuela’s ruling party PSUV once again granted special powers to President Nicolás Maduro so he could legislate at will by passing the so-called "Anti-Imperialist Enabling Law for Peace," published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 6,178 on Monday.
This law authorizes Maduro to do as he pleases for more than nine months, from March 16 to December of this year, when the legislative period of the current Parliament (aka National Assembly or AN) comes to an end.
The topics covered are broad and ambiguous as is the text of the law indicating that "the matters delegated to provide an enhanced warranty for the sovereignty rights and protection of the Venezuelan people and the constitutional order of the Republic" are condensed into four articles.
With this new law, the "red" lawmakers have satisfied an urgent request from the Venezuelan ruler, arguing "a need to have constitutional powers that allow me to move freely in a complex scenario that has been opened for Venezuela," referring to an executive order signed by President Barack Obama to declare Venezuela as a threat to the U.S.
This is the second enabling law granted to Maduro in one year and eleven months at the helm of power, apart from 20 months of unilateral and discretionary legislation, behind the backs of citizen participation and the assistance of political forces. This is no major surprise since this has been the norm of the Bolivarian government to install its so-called socialism of the 21st century in Venezuela through thick and thin in these past 16 years.
The dangerous precedent of enabling laws in times of the Bolivarian revolution are tangible and valid. These can be felt in each of the four enabling laws granted to the late Hugo Chávez, which allowed him to pass 215 decree-laws at his discretion during 36 months of his 13-year tenure. Or in the 57 decree-laws granted to Maduro in 2013 supposedly to tackle "corruption" and fight an imaginary "economic war" against his government.
Until now the 272 decree-laws passed by revolution officials have only served for the progress of a communist regime that has led a country with one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas to ruin. A country model that takes pleasure in plunging the population into misery; a population that is getting used to being humiliated and subjected to restrictions to access food, medicines and other scarce basic goods, while violent criminals and the ongoing political repression decimates it.
There is nothing to guarantee that the enabling law history will not be repeated again, and that this "Anti-Imperialist Enabling Law for Peace" will serve a different purpose than "protecting the people" from an inexistent U.S. invasion threat.
This enabling law will only serve to further sharpen the existing conflicts against the private sector of the economy, increase the repression against anyone opposing the "Plan for the Homeland" and avoid the return to democracy, while they lower the curtain to hide the serious economic, social and political crisis going on in Venezuela, as well as the rampant corruption and government officials linked to money laundering activities at international level.
What is certain is that this enabling law will end up being the true "Frankenstein’s monster" rather than the executive order signed by Obama, as Maduro has called it from the beginning.
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