SubscribeThe Venezualan people need to stand up now and make it clear THEY run the government.
"Democracy" may be used either narrowly to describe a nation-state (government) or more broadly to describe a free society. As a form of government, a democracy is the people ruling themselves collectively, usually via majority rule employing some system of voting and representation. However, as a liberal society, democracy is the people ruling themselves individually via private property, civil rights and civic duties (individual liberty and individual responsibility), which extends the concept of distributed power all of the way to individual citizens. Indeed, in democratic society, sovereignty originates in the people and is delegated to government rather than vice versa.
Republican democracy is a republic which has democracy. One meaning of the word republic is "thing for the public" or "object for the people." An alternative definition of republic in a more modern understanding of the term is a government that is administered by the people, and where the people are sovereign.
Fortunately, Agence France Press (AFP) got the story right. The opening sentence of AFP's Spanish-language report reads, "Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez claimed Saturday that, if the opposition decides not to run candidates in the December presidential election, he could decree a referendum to permit his reelection for multiple terms until 2031."
So the choice for the opposition is simple. If they don't want a referendum that would end presidential term limits, they shouldn't pull out of the upcoming presidential election. As far as I'm concerned, the threat of a referendum is a perfectly reasonable (and democratic) way to dissuade the opposition from trying to delegitimize Venezuela's electoral process.
When Venezuela's opposition knows it's going to lose an election, it has a tendency to try to delegitimize the electoral process. Instead of facing up to the fact that it is unpopular, the business-led opposition tries to shift the blame for its electoral misfortunes to the National Electoral Council (CNE). The opposition claims that the CNE could commit "fraud" and that the vote might not be secret. Opposition conspiracy theories of this nature are legion. Never mind that there have been international observers on hand that have testified to the fairness of Venezuela's elections. Never mind that even the opposition's own polls show that Chavez is much more popular than they are.
In other words, many members of the opposition aren't really interested in trying to win elections because they know that they lack popular support. Many in the opposition prefer, instead, to try to create the impression internationally that Venezuela's electoral process is illegitimate.
In the parliamentary elections of December 4, 2005, the party [Fifth Republic] won 114 out of 167 seats with allied parties winning the remaining seats. However, voter participation was a record low of only 25%, calling into question the legitimacy of the new national assembly.There's no indication — other than through your unsupported assertion (and those of North American media oligarchies) — that he is a dictator, or that he intends to become a dictator, or that this new referendum is a pretext to installing a dictatorship
All major opposition parties withdrew their candidates only days before the election in apparent protest at the general voting conditions. The main complaint was that the secrecy of the vote was compromised by voting machines that stored the time at which each vote was cast, allowing each persons vote to be worked out from knowledge of the voting order. The Organization of American States (OAS) and European Union (EU) endorsed the legitimacy of the actual voting procedure. Domestic election observer groups were highly critical of the conditions surrounding the election alleging voter intimidation, an inconsistent voter registry and accusations of misuse of public funds for campaign purposes by the MVR.
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posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:29 AM on May 8, 2006