Did Hugo Chavez just stage a coup?

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Did Hugo Chavez just stage a coup in Venezuela?

Via Capitol Hill Cubans:

Chavez’s Guardian Coup

Renowned Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington divided coups into three types:

1. Breakthrough coups – In which a revolutionary army overthrows a traditional government and creates a new bureaucratic elite.

2. Guardian coups – The stated aim of this form of coup is to improve public order, efficiency, or to end corruption. There is usually no fundamental shift in the structure of power, and the leaders of these types of coups generally portray their actions as a temporary and unfortunate necessity.

3. Veto coups – These coups occur when the army vetoes mass participation and social mobilization.

Now read the following news item from Reuters:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking decree powers for a year in a move he says is needed to deal with disastrous floods but opponents denounce as a calculated blow to democracy.

Did Chavez stage a coup?

Answer: #2

Will the OAS denounce Chavez’s coup as a violation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter?

Don’t hold your breath.

2 thoughts on “Did Hugo Chavez just stage a coup?”

  1. Watch the situation, it’s getting very hot. The association of Venezuelan lawyers (Colegio de Abogados)declared a few hours ago that the laws being passed by the lame duck National Assembly are null and constitute a coup. 16 laws in 15 days. One of the laws forbids deputies to vote for anything but the party line, in upfront violation of the Constitution. Farmers in the states of Zulia, Merida and Tachira (west/ southwest) are confronting the federal government over the expropiation of 47 farms. In the largest of the farms its owner and his 200 workers blocked the National Guard from taking it. There could be a lot of violence soon, but forget about the OAS.

  2. Did he? Is the pope Catholic? Could his excuse for ruling by decree be any more transparently BS? Is there an end to the bottomless pit of “Latin” stupidity, I mean, dysfunction? Exactly the same old shit, with endless minor variations, over and over again, ad nauseam. If anybody wants to know what Latin America is all about, just watch the movie “Groundhog Day.” No wonder these idiots, with few exceptions, have been mired in the same retarded muck forever.

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