Chavez´s referendum Part IV

Another election brought to you by Chavez. Maybe he forgets that the legitimacy of a government does not only come from electoral votes. Specially when considering that the Electoral Power (in our case the National Electoral Council, autonomous power granted by the Constitution) is absurdly controlled by the Venezuelan Presidency. One can only see examples of the past 3 Presidents of the Electoral Power, after having pleased Chavez, have bagged a Supreme Court Justice (Francisco Carrasquero), National Direction of Chavez´s party, ex Vice Presidente, now elected Mayor of Libertador Municipality (Jorge Rodriguez) and another one as Minister.

The levels of complacency in the National Electoral Council to Hugo Chavez has been exaggerated. The abuse of power of the Venezuelan Presidency has also been grose. One must imagine the level of control of Hugo Chavez towards the Board of the National Electoral Council.

Chavez´s new plan is to ammend the Constitution. His first original plan was solely to ammend the articles relating to the possibility of enabling the President to continously run for election. According to Chavez the President can run for office (reelection) in an indefinite manner. His rationale, at that time, is that he was the only one who could guarantee peace in the country, in an plausible all out war between the haves and the havesnot. The argument is awful and pretends to make a mockery of Venezuelas present. Having seen the reaction even in his own party (psuv), Chavez has recently changed plans and has presented the ammendment for all politicial officials in the Country. Chavez went on National Television and argued that he had made a mistake and now tries to present the ammendment in more apeassed fashion.

Chavez´s new referredum is schedule for Febuary (suprisingly fast!) and the question that the National Assembly has drafted to present in the referendum is as follows (my free translation, huh!)

Spanish
¿Aprueba Usted la ampliacion de los derechos politicos de los venezolanos y venezolanas en los terminos comtemplados en la enmienda de los articulos 230, 160, 174, 192 y 162 de la Constitucion Boliviariana de la Republica de Venezuela, tramitada por iniciativa de la Asamblea Nacional al permitirse la postulacion para todos los cargos de eleccion popular de modo que su eleccion sea expresion exclusiva del voto del pueblo?

English

Do you approve the enlargement of the political rights of venezuelans and venezuelannes in the terms provided in the ammendment of articles 230, 160, 174, 192 and 162 of the Bolivarian Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela, filed by initiative of the National Assembly in order to permit the proposal for all popular elected officers in a manner that their election is an exclusive expression of the vote of the people?

What really gets my attention is that the language of the question is highly judgemental when it suggests that the ammendment enables the vote to be the "exclusive expression of the people". Also the question for the referendum does not address the fact that it was proposed by the Presidency and not the National Assembly. But seriously, what does exclusive expression of the people entail? This is outrageous!!!.......or very funny!

My take is that Chavez will loose the referedum. Not by a landslide though. After that one could only imagine where is Tibisay Lucena´s next (chavista) gig?