VENEZUELA: PRO-GOVERNMENT ASSEMBLEY VOTES TO STRIP OPPOSITION-CONTROLLED CONGRESS OF ITS FEW REMAINING POWERS.
Record ID:
328436
VENEZUELA: PRO-GOVERNMENT ASSEMBLEY VOTES TO STRIP OPPOSITION-CONTROLLED CONGRESS OF ITS FEW REMAINING POWERS.
- Title: VENEZUELA: PRO-GOVERNMENT ASSEMBLEY VOTES TO STRIP OPPOSITION-CONTROLLED CONGRESS OF ITS FEW REMAINING POWERS.
- Date: 31st August 1999
- Summary: CARACAS, VENEZUELA (AUGUST 30, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. GV/TILT: CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY 0.07 2. MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) DEPUTY SECRETARY OF NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY, ALEJANDRO ANDRADE SAYING "The sessions of the Venezuelan Congress, ordinary and extraordinary, have been suspended, as is any other activity of the chamber and other commissions of said Congress. The National Constitutional Assembly will assume the functions of the delegate commission, of the finance committee, of the public spending committee, and the special committees. If they do not do what corresponds to them, if they do not fulfill their functions, or delay the fulfillment of the same, or in some way it is presumed the non compliance of these functions." 0.33 3. MV: MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY LISTENING 0.39 4. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MEMBER OF CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY GUILLERMO GARCIA SAYING: "Evidently, the old politics, orphaned of national support, orphaned of popular support, has gone to refugee itself in the imperial circles. It has gone to kiss the foreign hand to obtain support that it doesn't achieve in our country." 1.11 5. MV: MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY LISTENING 1.17 6. MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) OPPOSITION MEMBER OF CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY, ALBERTO FRANCHESQUI SAYING: "This is not how a national congress functions. With a hatchet at their throat it doesn't function my friend. Because that simply is power diminished to its knees waiting for Vladimir to concede the grace of doing something with his congressional functions and if not Vladimir will cut their throat." 1.43 7. MCU: MEDIA 1.47 8. TV: CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY VOTING TO STRIP CONGRESS OF ITS POWERS 2.01 9. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SECRETARY OF CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY, ELVIS AMOROSO SAYING: "This official trip that is to attend the inauguration of the President-elect of Panama, Mireya Moscoso, and meetings with the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras. Yours Sincerely, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. 2.18 10. TV: CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY VOTING TO APPROVE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ' TRIP TO PANAMA 2.25 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 15th September 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: CARACAS, VENEZUELA
- Country: Venezuela
- Reuters ID: LVA8RIQD4LSOQJJ6Y8CGQKZOLLJW
- Story Text: A pro-government Venezuelan assembly has voted to
strip the opposition-controlled Congress of its few remaining
powers after legislators refused to meet to approve President
Hugo Chavez's planned trips abroad.
A pro-government Venezuelan assembly voted on Monday
(August 30) to strip the opposition-controlled Congress of its
few remaining powers after legislators refused to meet to
approve President Hugo Chavez's planned trips abroad.
Opposition lawmakers, already incensed by a
Constitutional Assembly decree that barred them from holding
sessions, said the move signaled the death of Congress, most
of whose functions have already been assumed by the new
assembly, elected last month.
A former paratrooper who served two years in jail for
leading a 1992 coup attempt, Chavez argues that the assembly
is carrying out a "peaceful revolution" in a country crippled
by poverty and corruption.
But his critics counter that his reforms are riding
roughshod over the rule of law, paving the way to a virtual
dictatorship.
"This is not how a national congress functions.With a
hatchet at their throat it doesn't function my friend.
Because that is simply power diminished to its knees waiting
for Vladimir to concede the grace of doing something with
congressional functions and if not Vladimir will cut their
throat," said opposition member Alberto Franchesqui.
Opposition parties boycotted a congressional committee
meeting called to approve Chavez's planned trips this week to
Panama and Brazil as a "civic protest" against what they view
as the president's authoritarian style of government.
According to the Venezuelan constitution, Congress must
approve all presidential travels abroad.
After voting to strip Congress of its remaining power, the
Constitutional Assembly approved Chavez's trip to Panama for
the inauguration of President-elect Mireya Moscoso.
Constitutional Assembly members, more than 90 percent of
whom support Chavez's highly popular government, said they
were stepping in to avoid a power vacuum in the South American
oil exporter of 23 million people.
"Evidently, the old politics, orphaned of national
support, orphaned of popular support, has gone to refugee
itself in the imperial circles.It has gone to kiss the foreign
hand to obtain support that it doesn't achieve in our country."
Legislators and assembly members have been at loggerheads
since last Wednesday (August 26) the Constitutional Assembly,
which has taken over the Congress building in central Caracas,
approved a decree that severely curtailed Congress's functions.
A left-leaning nationalist whose radical reforms have
stirred resistance at home and concern abroad, Chavez says
that Congress is a hotbed of corruption out of touch with a
country where more than half the population lives in poverty.
He has entrusted the Constitutional Assembly, whose
members include his wife, his brother and several members of
his 1992 coup attempt, with rewriting the constitution and
rooting out graft in one of Latin America's oldest democracies.
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