Opposition Kicks off Campaign against Venezuelan Constitutional Reform
Caracas, November 3, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)- With boisterous chants of "No to the Reform," Venezuela's opposition kicked off its campaign today against the Venezuelan Constitutional Reform, in an impressive demonstration of thousands on Victoria Avenue, just south of the Central Venezuelan University (UCV) in Caracas.
"The Commitment to Victory" demonstration was convoked by the Comando Nacional de la Resistencia (National Resistance Command - CNR) and supported by various opposition parties including, Acción Democrática (AD), Alianza Bravo Pueblo (ABP), and Bandera Roja (BR).
Hermann Escarrá, one of the members of the two-year-old CNR and a member of the Constitutional Assembly which wrote the 1999 Constitution, said before the crowd of thousands today, "I want to begin by saying that here truly is all of the opposition."
The opposition has remained fairly divided over how to react to Chavez' Constitutional Reform. The CNR and the parties represented at today's demonstration called for followers not to vote in the referendum, but to get out in the streets to put an end to it.
"We know and we applaud those sectors that had been continuing this useless debate about whether or not to vote - their bases, their youth, their women, their flags, are beginning to say strongly throughout the nation, that this is not about whether or not to vote, it is about impeding [the reform], it is about getting out in the streets, it is about restoring the ethical and moral order of the Republic," Escarrá continued.
Three of the most important opposition parties, however, Primero Justicia (PJ), Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) and the Christian Democrat party, COPEI, have called on the people to go to the polls and vote, "No".
However, most of those in the crowd today, regardless of their political affiliation, were adamantly against even a vote on the reform.
"We are protesting, not just against the content, but against the reform itself. I think that it is a completely unconstitutional reform, and whatever the content may be, the simple fact of being unconstitutional changes everything," said Denis Gomez, an engineer from Western Caracas, "Since it's an unconstitutional reform, I'm not going to vote. Complete abstention, and as Escarrá proposes, the rebellion continues."
Escarrá and other have held that the present reform proposal is unconstitutional because it violates the "democratic principles of the 1999 Constitution." They point specifically to article 342 of current Constitution, which states that "the Constitutional Reform has the objective of a partial revision of this Constitution and the substitution of one or various of the norms that does not modify the fundamental structure and principles of the constitutional text."
President Hugo Chavez, members of the National Assembly and those in favor of the reform say that the partial alteration of the 69-out of a total of 350-articles does not alter the "fundamental structure or principles," and that the changes actually increase democracy and popular power.
Protests are planned over the next month in the lead-up to the December 2nd, Constitutional Reform Nationwide Referendum. During the demonstration, organizers announced a march to take place on Friday, November 9th, and unveiled a plan for a "March Without Return" to take place at the end of November, when protestors will head to the streets and "not return home"
Today's demonstration is the third over the last two weeks against the reform. Students from the Andrés Bello Catholic University, the UCV, and other universities have marched twice over the last two weeks to the National Assembly and then to the National Electoral Council (CNE), to ask the governmental bodies to delay the reform for three months so that the Venezuelan people will have adequate time to become informed about its content. Both events registered violent clashes with the Caracas Metropolitan Police Force, who used tear gas and water cannons last Wednesday to disperse the crowds after they were attacked with rocks and bottles. The same day, a delegation of students inside the CNE attempted to chain themselves to the stairwell. In recent days, student marches have also taken place elsewhere across Venezuela.
Students have called for another march to take place this coming Wednesday, to Venezuela's Supreme Court, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), where they plan to deliver a document calling for an injunction to stop the December 2nd referendum.
Today's demonstration comes just a day after the National Assembly officially passed the 69 reformed articles out of its legislative body and delivered them to the CNE. The Electoral Council is preparing for a referendum on the reforms to take place on December 2nd.
The reforms, which Chavez says are necessary to move towards 21st Century Socialism, deal with a wide variety of topics from lowering the workweek to 36 hours, to prohibiting against discrimination based on health and sexual orientation. One of the most controversial of the article reforms would remove the two-term limit for President.
"A dictatorship can't survive with the Socialist system that he's trying to implant," said Richard Gonzalez, a radical opposition activist at today's march, "and the people don't want either one or the other. So we are going to get in the streets and if we have to give our lives for our children or for our homeland, than we are going to do it, but we aren't going to tolerate a Marxist, Leninst, Cubanist Communism here."
Pro-Chavez supporters will launch their campaign in support of the reforms in a march tomorrow in Venezuela's capital, Caracas.
