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REPORTS: VENEZUELA |
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Congress,
Supreme Court Clash over Electoral
Powers
Humberto
Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) - The struggle for
power that has polarised all spheres
of Venezuelan society was revived this
week when the Supreme Court threatened
to designate a new Electoral Council,
a task that constitutionally belongs
to Congress, as lawmakers stressed on
Wednesday.
The Supreme Court said Monday that
Congress is committing a
”constitutional omission” in
failing to designate the five members
of the Electoral Council, and gave the
lawmakers 10 days to do so.
Otherwise, before Aug. 24, the court
itself will name a provisional council
that would hold legislative faculties,
said the justices in their ruling.
Establishing the electoral body is
seen as the next step that would allow
the political opposition to convene a
referendum on President Hugo Chávez's
mandate.
The congressional leadership, in the
hands of Chávez supporters, said
Wednesday that it is ”juridically
and politically unacceptable” that
another branch of government take up
that authority, and convened sessions
to carry out the slippery task of
selecting members for the electoral
body.
The make-up of the council requires
approval by two-thirds of Congress --
110 of the 165 legislators. But this
has proved impossible to achieve so
far because the members of the
governing coalitionn (84) and of the
opposition (78) vote in their
respective blocs, even on the most
trivial matters. There are three
lawmakers who vote independently.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has 20
members, and studies of its decisions
in the past year indicate parity in
its support for the governing and
opposition parties.
Each side refuses to allow the other
to have a majority on the Electoral
Council. Party leaders and political
analysts agree that no one is going to
let their arm be twisted any time
soon.
What is at stake is that the Electoral
Council would convene and oversee the
referendum planned for late this year
or early 2004 in which Venezuelans
would decide whether to revoke the
six-year mandate of President Chávez
(2000-2006).
The opposition has been pressing since
late 2001 for Chávez's early ouster,
staging massive marches, labour union
and business-led strikes -- including
a two-month stoppage beginning in
December 2002, and even a short-lived
coup d'état in April 2002.
Now the anti-Chávez groups hope to
achieve their goal through the
so-called ”revocatory” referendum.
”It's clear that the authority to
designate the Electoral Council lies
with Congress. But if it doesn't
comply with that duty we are left
without an electoral body. If Congress
isn't going to do the laundry, the
least it could do is let someone use
the tub,” said analyst Teodoro
Petkoff, a critic of the Chávez
government and editor of the Caracas
newspaper 'Tal Cual'.
According to pro-Chávez lawmaker
Calixto Ortega, ”One cannot yet
speak of usurpation of power, because
what we have from the court is a
proposal.. But it would be a very
dangerous precedent because under
these criteria (the 'constitutional
omission') the Supreme Court could
begin legislating.”
Francisco Ameliach, president of
Congress, read a statement Wednesday
that said, ”It would be a juridical
disfigurement and politically
unacceptable that, in the name of
supposed correctives of constitutional
omissions, the principle of the
legality of the state is
deteriorated.”
Congress ”will not accept any form
of intromission, pressure or
interference that seeks to legitimise
campaigns promoting a conflict of
powers,” nor decisions that
”disfigure the constitution and
laws,” said Ameliach, who is also
the director-general of the Fifth
Republic Movement, Chávez's party.
If Congress, even with a simple
majority, ends up in a confrontation
with the judiciary, the executive
branch would have the political
ammunition to fight the referendum,
which Chávez does not want to take
place.
The Venezuelan government is made up
of five branches: the three
traditional ones (executive,
legislative and judicial), the
electoral, directed by the yet-to-be
named council, and the citizen, which
includes the attorney general,
ombudsman and comptroller general.
The possibility of a revocatory
referendum was established in the 1999
constitution, promoted by Chávez
himself as a mechanism for
participatory democracy.
Such a vote may be requested in
regards to any elected official if
signatures are collected from a
minimum of 20 percent of the relevant
electoral roster.
The revocation of the mandate would
then require the support of a larger
number of voters than the total that
put the elected official in office.
Venezuela, with a population of 23
million, has around 12 million
registered voters, meaning that
signatures from 2.4 million would be
needed to request a referendum.
The opposition assures not only that
it has more than the required number
of signatures, but also that it could
collect them again in a matter of days
if necessary.
Meanwhile, the constitutional panel of
the Supreme Court has begun
consultations with political parties,
non-governmental organisations, the
citizen branch of government and
universities to draft a list of
candidates for the provisional
Electoral Council.
For their part, congressional leaders
are proposing a bill that would boost
the number of Supreme Court justices
from 20 to 32 in order to break the
apparent tie between Chávez and
opposition supporters.
Political scientist Carlos Blanco, of
the opposition, says Chávez and the
judges on the constitutional panel
have concocted a pact so that the high
court would designate the Electoral
Council in exchange for allowing the
Supreme Court expansion to go through.
The result, says Blanco, would be that
the Supreme Court could obstruct the
referendum process independently of
what the future Electoral Council
decides.
”If the referendum is blocked, one
can expect the armed forces to play a
significant role in subsequent
events,” retired U.S. general John
Thompson, former chief of the Southern
Command and former president of the
Inter-American Defence Board, warned
in a recent address in Washington.
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