Embattled Venezuelan president calls for new constitution

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Embattled Venezuelan president calls for new constitution

By Hannah Dreier?|?AP May 1 at 8:06 PM

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s increasingly embattled president called Monday for a new constitution as an intensifying protest movement entered a second month with clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators.

After hundreds of thousands took to the streets again to call for his ouster, President Nicolas Maduro announced that he was calling for a citizens assembly and a new constitution for the economically flailing South American nation. He said the move was needed to restore peace and stop his political opponents from trying to carry out a coup.

Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that Maduro was seeking to further erode Venezuela’s constitutional order. Maduro was expected to later give more details about his plan, which is likely to ratchet up tensions even more in a country already on edge.

Many people expect the socialist administration to give itself the power to pick a majority of delegates to a constitutional convention. Maduro could then use the writing of a new constitution as an excuse to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and presidential elections that were to be held in 2018, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/rival-marches-in-venezuela-to-oppose-back-government/2017/05/01/4f70b8dc-2e89-11e7-a335-fa0ae1940305_story.html?utm_term=.cc16d6b48e2d

[Marksman_91]

1. The walls are closing in

Will our resident UI's keep defending the indefensible? They've been awfully quiet about Venezuela lately. Guess they know they're out of arguments.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. Mark Weisbrot actually wrote a new article about Venezuela leaving the OAS

Although he wrote nothing about the repression, Maduro, the lack of elections, the failure of the chavista government, or the new proposal by Maduro to avoid calling elections.

[Marksman_91]

3. I actually read that recently

He's the most idiotic apologist for the Chavista regime of the developed world. Guy was sacked from The Guardian I think for his dumb views and totally failed predictions.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. Here is a really good one from Weisbrot

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/07/venezuela-not-greece-latin-america-oil-poverty

Sorry, Venezuela haters: this economy is not the Greece of Latin America

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Hyperinflation is also a very remote possibility. For the first two years of the economic recovery that began in June 2010, inflation was falling even as economic growth accelerated to 5.7% for 2012. In the first quarter of 2012, it reached a monthly low of just 2.9%. This shows that the Venezuelan economy – despite its problems – is very capable of providing healthy growth even while bringing down inflation.

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Of course Venezuela is facing serious economic problems. But they are not the kind suffered by Greece or Spain, trapped in an arrangement in which macroeconomic policy is determined by people who have objectives that conflict with the country's economic recovery. Venezuela has sufficient reserves and foreign exchange earnings to do whatever it wants, including driving down the black market value of the dollar and eliminating most shortages. These are problems that can be resolved relatively quickly with policy changes. Venezuela – like most economies in the world – also has long-term structural problems such as overdependence on oil, inadequate infrastructure, and limited administrative capacity. But these are not the cause of its current predicament.

[Marksman_91]

5. How anyone considers him a credible source for anything is beyond me... n/t