Talk Elections

Chávez seeks changes allowing indefinite rule (http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2142710,00.html)

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, has announced his intention to change the country's constitution, allowing him to rule indefinitely.

The socialist leader used his weekly television programme, Hello President, to confirm widely anticipated plans to scrap the limits on presidential terms.

Mr Chávez said the expected change - which must be agreed by parliament and approved by voters in a referendum - would enhance democracy.

More. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2142710,00.html)

The last paragraph actually made laugh out loud.

Typical politician bulls***.

More like typical communist bulls**t.

I could dig out the usualy leftist commentary about Chavez from a few years back by media and political 'luvvies' but...you know :) Why embarrass them further.

I wonder how Sean Penn feels about this.

Well, WHat do you know? He's committing the same stupid mistake that Saparmurat Niyazov (of Turkmenistan) did.

These people don't realize that they're going to die some day, no?

Gotta love this. "Letting me stay in power indefinitely will allow democracy to grow and flourish." Dictators must crack themselves up.

Chavez is insane.

Why i said this is because Niyazov never considered the idea that he was going to die. HOW MORONIC! I bet chavez is thinking along the same line. Don't be surprised if he starts to do this "cult of personality" bullshit

*gasp* This is a surprise. FYI, seems Mugabe in Zimbabwe might get the same thing.

Reality check. He's abolishing term limits. Not trying to be elected president for life. End of reality check.

Reality check. He's trying to become dictator for life, this is just the first step. If you don't believe it you are not that alert. End of reality check.

Reality Check. Chavez doesn't have the balls to actually call himself "Dictator". End of reality check.

I'm referring to the moronic comparisons with Niyazov and the like. I don't like Chavez (I much prefer Evo Morales :P ). He's not trying to become dictator of Venezuela for life, he's trying to remain the hugely populist, hugely popular president of Venezuela for life (oh yes) - and the informal, ahem, líder of the Western Hemisphere.

It'd be nice to think so, but I'm being realistic here.

Fascists, communists, liberals, conservatives, theocrats, moderates. Politicians all. At the end of the day they all want power to carry out their will and they will connive and lie to any and all in order for them to be able to manipulate others into giving them what they want.

Chavez's statement of "removing term limits will enhance democracy" reminds me of all these idiots that we elect that think the 22nd Amendment is a bad idea and should be revoked.

Stupid Commies

Now this reminds me, Has there ever been a modern world leader who ACTUALLY holds the title "dictator" or calls himself "dictator" or admits that he is one?

Not even Fidel Castro says it.

Kim Jong Il calls himself supreme leader.

But that's another make-believe title... Look I'm looking for someone who doesnt give it a second thought to call himself "Tyrant" and call himself "oppressive".

I can't think of anyone. Although if I got in power...

Aren't too many who don't have boring titles like President or Prime Minister.
Gaddafi calls himself "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution".
Hu Jintao is "Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China".
Khamenei is "Supreme Leader of Iran".
San Marino is led by a pair of "Captains Regent" elected every six months.
Plus a whole slew of Kings, Emirs, Grand Dukes and other monarchist titles.

We need Republics and pseudo-Republics to come up with some interesting names.

but doesn't anyone use the title "Dictator" anymore, or is it now just a perjorative term?

Alas, dictators today must at least pretend to observe the will of the people to be accepted internationally.

I fixed your story

^^^^

Oh come on Lewis.  Yes technically the measure doesn't make him President for life.  But I can't see you arguing/don't believe you would dispute that he would win every election for president that he stood for.

Indeed, it would be an interesting question... what drives authoritarian regimes to give up power voluntarily? The Pincohet and Franco regimes, while horrible, gave way to free elections without the need for much political struggle. The Communist regimes on the other hand gave way only when their hands were forced by an unwilling military. Is that accurate to say? It seems so.

The Franco regime never gave up power, Franco died. Franco installed Juan Carlos I of the Carlists as King and raised him to be his successor and to carry on leading the country as Franco did. Once Franco died, Juan Carlos had no one to answer to and told people to prepare for elections in a year, pissing off a number of Spanish conservatives. The military attempted a coup to gain back their power, but Juan Carlos held his ground and the Spanish public accepted him, even the left-wing politicians that were anti-monarchist.

No and really no one ever used the term dictator in history either. Dictator comes from the Roman term for a military leader elected during times of extreme crisis who was given power over the entire Roman government and was allowed to rule by decree until his six month term ended.

After the classical period it seems only Simon Bolivar, who was called Dictator for a single year of his reign, and the leaders of some of the anti-Russian uprisings in Poland styled themselves dictators. Beyond that most use terms such as President or crazier titles like Qaddafi's depending upon their personalities.

Also I found this fun little website linked from the Wikipedia dictator page: http://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/English/English_welcome.htm.

The Current Dictator of the Month is Rafael Trujillo.

I guess the closest we have to a modern-day strongman abandoning the pretense of democracy is Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire, although even he claimed to rule a constitutional monarchy.  The weirdest thing about his short three year reign in the late 1970's is the role that school uniforms played in his ultimate downfall.

No, of course not. "Dictator" means, very roughly, "non-democratically elected President". Which gives journalists infinite wiggle-room for misrepresentation, such as calling Eritrea's brutal, internationally isolated dictator "dictator" and Ethiopia's almost as brutal, US allied dictator "president" in the same sentence. (In a supposedly leftish German newspaper, no less. ::) ) "Dictator" is not a bureaucratic rank, but a statement of fact. Mussolini's official position was that of Prime Minister. As was Hitler's until Hindenburg died.

Actually, he uses the title "Chairman of the National Defence Commission". That's because his late father is still officially the President. :D

While the oil boom lasts, yes. This is supposed to demonstrate exactly what?

Well, it is. There isn't really much basis for a defense of term limits. Keeping individual politicians' ego in check and politicians in fear of being retired by the voters - preventing them from becoming as all-dominant as Chavez in Venezuela or Kaukonen in 50s-70s Finland - is a job for civil society, not the constitution.

He already is, more or less, just on rather informal lines (read mass terrorisation of political opponents).

Now Zimbabwe, that's a really down-the-drain ex-democracy with a tiny few figleaves left.
Not comparable to Venezuela at all.

Give Chavez some time and he'll get to that as well. He's already screwed their hospitals over, foreigners aren't allowed in side because of how bad they are now.

Actually, that was you. Venezuela's once fairly good health care system deteriorated to teh point of nonexistence during the last twenty years before Chavez.
Chavez' attempts to rectify the situation, though, have been largely a disaster, though not a quite unmitigated one. Which is largely due to ideological battles being fought over the issue, by both sides by the way though of course folly in a President is a more serious offense than in private lobbyists... (Chavez basically built a government system of cheap healthcare in neighborhoods that hadn't had any for decades - but ran it very much as a competitor to private establishments, plus tried to use it for election purposes, etc. ANd staffed it mostly with underpaid (by Venezuelan standards) Cubans. Etc. Bad, bad populist rightwing fool, Hugo Chavez. As I was saying.)

SInce when is Chavez a "rightwing"? at least from Western Perspective.

Anyways, yeah! fixing something that was reduced to nonexistant, comes with its price... Remember in 1980's Mexico when Miguel De La Madrid became President? Throughout his administration, he attempted to undo the damage that the 70's presidents (Echeverria and Lopez Portillo) did. He decentralized as much as he couls with the cost of massive inflation. His successors have continued to do the same. and it;s been working?

An arch-Nationalist, quite lacking in democratic instincts (while obviously no dictator - if he really wanted a full dictatorial position he's had ample opportunity go by unused) who aspires to regional leadership? That's right-wing in my book, anyhow. Although of course an entirely legitimate opposite view can be held (Chavez is certainly on the left on traditional race/class cleavages and such) - but was Peron a leftist?

why havent we 'dealt with' this despot?

I'm challenging your statement..."Not trying to be elected president for life."

As I see it, you seem to be disputing the inferrence that while this measure doesn't make Chavez president for life, it effectively would do just that.  If I read you correctly.

Oh, he certainly wants to remain president for the remainder of his life - but "president for life" has a very different, Turkmenic ring to it that is completely out of place here. Eamon de Valera wanted to remain President for the remainder of his life as well. Konrad Adenauer wanted to remain Chancellor for the remainder of his life. So did Helmut Kohl. (All failed in that objective, eventually.)

Well, I don't dispute the first half of what you said (turkmenic part), i think you placing him in the same category as Adenauer/Kohl is a little unfair to those two. (if my history knowledge serves me correctly)...Those guys had to deal with viable opposition parties and the constant threat of losing an election.  Chavez does not, and (forseeably will not) face that challenge...True, there is some strength in Venezuela's opposition parties, but they're not really viable (whether they could be...yes an issue)...

so he's probably somewhere between the turkmenic end and the Kohl end...

Whether Chavez wants to be near Kohl's end is another, more disturbing, question entirely.

Kohl was a cheapshot. Adenauer didn't have to fear elections in the middle 19fifties. That Chavez will continue to govern *for ever* is by no means a given - he's unbeatable in the current political situation (such as, high oil prices, Bush**te antidemocratic coupists governing the Big Satan, etc), but that may not last.

Meh. Kohl deserved it.

I still think Chavez is more secure than Adenauer was in the 50s. I guess thats just a matter of opinion.

Can we get Colombia to kill him and end his slow trek to Communism and Dictatorship?

he'd love nothing more!  do you not get it?  he'd then die a martyr and hero who was murdered at the hands of Yanqui Imperialism.

Get Colombia to get some person that's poor from Venezuala who hates Chavez to do it. Just train him to do it and give him the weapons. It wouldn't look like that then.

Yes it would. How would you feel if another country trained some redneck hillbilly (has to be a White man to make it less obvious...) to assassinate your own favorite President? Think about that before throwing such disgusting shite around, ok?

There is. In presidential systems of Lat Am type actual electoral loss by an incumbent absent a major disaster of cataclismic proportions is an extremely rare, if not an unheard of, event. Even when press, etc., work well (as they rarely do), it turns out it is a lot easier to depose an incumbent who does not want to go by a coup or revolution, than at a ballot box. Hence, I tend to believe, that absent term limits, democratic transfer of power from a non-senile leader would be an extremely rarely observed phenomenon in Latin America (not every generation of voters would live to see one). At the same time, there would be a lot more coups.

This is, actually, the reason I believe Chavez will never be defeated at the ballot box: the conditions for a successful and widely socially supported coup in Venezuela would be achieved ages before the conditions for an electoral defeat he would acknowledge. Frankly, I wouldn't give him more than one in four chance of dying in his own private non-presidential bed in Venezuela at this point (mind it, I actually expect him to live long).

Agreed here. It is, actually, from a "Western" (or, better say, European) perspective that Chavez is a right-winger.  It should be always rememered, that most of Latin American "leftists", if they are not Communists, are, actually, National Sociallists (ie, Mussoliniesque fascists) ideologically.  In fact, outside of  Chile I can barely think of a major leftist party (or individual politician) in the European sense of the word in Latin America at this point that is also on the left of his country's politics (Costa Rica's Arrias used to be, but he is now locally labled "rightist").

Hmmm.....Damn. You gotta hate when you back someone up, and everything that happens seems to slap you in the face. Im no longer a supporter of this man. I just cant take this anymore. -_-

WHy not, instead of this silly idea of indefinite rule, does it like Vladimir Putin in Russia or the old PRI party in Mexico? Instead of having himself be re-elected multiple times, and risk eventual instability and a coup, he can just appoint a successor with the same interests as himself, have a rigged election, and then have his successor continue his legacy?

The Mexicans did it for 71 years, and it worked to stabilize the country. Throughout the 20th Century, Mexico was considered (and still is) the bastion of political continuity and stability in all of Latin America, where the norm of the times were violent revolutions, coup d'etats, civil wars, and military dictatorships.

Even the old Soviet government praised the PRI regime in Mexico and once coined it "The Perfect dictatorship" because it used democracy to justify its means. And now, I believe Vladimir Putin will turn to do as the PRI did almost 75 yrs ago. So why can't Chavez do that? eventually the political tensions in his country would wane down.

*dies laughin'* That's perhaps one of the top ten funniest things I've ever read on this forum. Almost as funny as CitizenJames claiming neocons are really left wingers in disguise.

"Practical considerations", eh?
Well, even then a term limit is but a weak surrogate for a strong civil society (which of course doesn't exist in South America)

Not really. Not even the US would have done well without a presidential term limit (which, de facto, was customary pre-Roosevelt as well - thanks to Gen. Washington). In a presidential system of the American (drop the Lat) type, the incumbent's advantage is simply too strong. True, in the US incumbents, occasionally, loose - but most political scientists agree that they don't do so frequently enough. Without the de facto (originally) or a de jure (now) term limit you'd observe lengthy periods of single-person rule. Frankly, I am pretty confident that in the absence of the two-term tradition even the US would have lived through a few coup attempts in the 19th century, and, may be, a couple of extra civil wars.

Ok, I could imagine another remedy. For instance, allow a re-election by a supermajority (eg., postulate that if the challenger gets 45% of the vote against 55% for the incumbent the challenger gets elected), but any solution would be less clean than term limits.

Anyway, bad is that political system that is not based on practical considerations: otherwise, there would have been many perfectly defensible versions of Communism

I am happy that you find the real world this funny :)

The real world is that Chavez is a left wing extremist and he certainly is NOT right wing.

What about Mussolini? Because the two are really hard to distinguish. Of the current European politicians he is, unquestionably, the closest to Berlusconi. I don't really care if you call them right, left, down, up or strange, as long as you recognize their similarity.

If you really want to get a long-term civil war and, likely, a failed state in Venezuela, you, probably, could.  Otherwise, just wait until the oil prices fall or he himself screws up badly enough to be ousted in a domestic coup (preferably, entirely unrelated to US pressure - and, hopefully, even publically condemned by the US government). I'd give it another 10-15 years.

Admittedly. :)

Anyways, guess I sort of ignored just how common presidential term limits are all over South America.

Considering that between Jackson and Wilson we had exactly one President serve to the end of a second consecutive term, Grant, with one term Presidents between Jackson and Lincoln not even getting renominated by their own party, I think you're completely wrong about the prospect of a 19th century U.S. coup d'etat.  The Union dissolving as it did in Central America and Gran Colombia is a far greater possibility than any coup d'etat to take control of the then weak Federal government.  If that had happened, we'd probably have had some coups.

to bad no one thought about it that way. Americans are too civilized for coups