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Leo Ramirez / AFP - Getty Images
Literature praising Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on sale at a shop in Caracas on Monday. As the date approaches for Chavez to be inaugurated for a new term in office, the president remained out of sight and gravely ill after a complicated cancer surgery in Cuba.
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Venezuela are warning that the country's stability is at risk amid growing tensions surrounding President Hugo Chavez's long absence after cancer surgery in Cuba.
Catholic leaders in the Venezuelan Bishops Conference said on Monday that conflicting stances by the government and opposition ahead of Chavez's scheduled swearing-in for a new term make for a potentially dangerous and violent situation.
"The nation's political and social stability is at serious risk," said Bishop Diego Padron, the conference's president, reading a statement from the organization.
Venezuela's opposition is accusing the government of violating the constitution by proposing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new term, slated to take place on Thursday.
The socialist leader's allies say the Jan. 10 inauguration date laid out in the constitution is just a "formality." They say Chavez, who has not been heard from for almost a month after complex cancer surgery in Cuba, can take office when his health allows.
His adversaries say that would be running roughshod over the constitution as the former soldier remains in Havana and appears too weak to return to Venezuela after winning re-election in October for a third six-year term.
"If the president of the republic does not take office (on Jan. 10), the country cannot be left in a power vacuum," said Tomas Guanipa of the opposition Justice First party, insisting Congress head Diosdado Cabello should be temporarily sworn in.
The dispute centers on an article of the constitution that says a president-elect should be sworn in on Jan. 10 but does not say what happens if the inauguration does not take place that date.
The official position is that Chavez is fulfilling his duties as head of state despite a severe respiratory infection that has at times left him struggling to breathe. He has not been seen in public or in a lived broadcast since his surgery.
The government, which has refused to discuss having Chavez temporarily step aside as he recovers, is providing only terse statements with bare-bones details of his condition.
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Television networks have for days aired contrasting interpretations of the constitutional articles in question, with the opinions of constitutional lawyers and ad hoc experts now filling social networks.
It remains unclear what the opposition intends to do if Chavez doesn't show up on inauguration day.
But National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello warned the opposition not to try to stir up trouble. Speaking to reporters alongside Maduro on Monday, he called for the government's supporters to demonstrate in the streets of Caracas on Thursday.
Cabello also said at a news conference that some foreign leaders would soon visit Venezuela to express solidarity with Chavez. He didn't give details or identify the presidents.
But Cabello also avoided saying whether the inauguration was definitely being put off. Asked if the government now rules out Chavez being able to make it back on time for the inauguration, Cabello said: "We don't rule out absolutely anything at all."
Maduro reiterated the government's view that Chavez may be sworn in before the Supreme Court at a later date. Referring to the Catholic Church's leaders, Maduro said he hopes they "maintain a conduct of respect."
Constitutional expert Roman Duque Corredor, a former Supreme Court magistrate, said the constitution is clear that Chavez's inauguration cannot legally be postponed.
Duque said he believes the Supreme Court should now form a board of doctors to determine the president's condition.
Some opposition politicians also say it's time for such a medical team to travel to Havana to determine whether Chavez is fit to remain in office or not.
Opposition lawmaker Julio Borges said on Monday that Chavez's allies have turned to a convoluted interpretation of the constitution for their political aims while they hold sway in the president's absence.
"We don't know who's governing Venezuela now," Borges told the Venezuelan radio station Union Radio.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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The man is totally unimportant except in his own mind. The nation comes first. A head of state needs to be sworn in on January 10th.
Adios commie.
Chavez who?
U.S. legislation has launched and financed significant news propaganda incursions into the Venezuelan media. Representative Connie Mack IV (R-FL) successfully pushed through an amendment in 2005 to a Foreign Relations Reauthorization Bill that provided for 30 minutes of programming every day from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (the same government agency that runs Radio Free Europe) to be transmitted over Venezuelan airwaves. Mack remarked at the time, “in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela there is no free press – just state controlled anti-American propaganda.”
http://www.mediaaccuracy.org/node/62
Your money hard at work trying to convince foreign citizens their president is evil; obviously its not just happening in Venezuela. Maybe it just takes people to be seriously put through the wringer before they think for themselves. ;)
Piling pork into every bill is what Mack does best. At least he lost the Senate bid.
So many people want to fix situations in other countries,
but, just cannot not ,are not willing to get together to fix OUR countries problems 1st. You all think you have all the knowledge to fix other countries problems, yet when it comes to OUR problems, Obstruction seems to be your all's answer to everything. Venezuela and Chavez is their problem. Chavez is no threat to us in any manner what so ever. Yet TGOP without a doubt are to our country. Get your priorities straight for a change.
TRY , YES TRY consentrating on our problems 1 st for a change.
No threat?? Only thousands of Iranian and hezbollah terrorists have entered with false papers in Venezuela and spread out all over Latin America. They are working with the drug terrorists in the north of Mexico.This is hardly a secret! Night hawk, do some research and then come back and make the same naive and dangerous statements!
Show me a link to your statement.
I am sure I know more about Venezuelan politics and what is happening in that country then you will ever know. And about world terrorism I am also sure I know more then you. And I don't read it on the Internet.
Don't be tense, Chavez is a goner. We all got to go someday.
If we all went it would save the environment.
If he goes, he goes. His time will be when it is, no one can change that. Hopefully there isn't a power struggle, and a bunch of violence if he does go.
Beautiful country Venezuela.
If this bloated, cancer ridden narcissist gave a damn about Venezuela he'd resign and focus upon his own health. But none of these world leaders really do give a damn about the country they lead. It's all about them. Just like Obama.
Die already and free your country. Buh Bye PIG.
Looks like socialist dictators and governments use constitutions for window dressing to appease their own people and the United Nations. A constitution to venezula communists is just a recommended way of doing things. You use it when you need like to exhibit yourself to the international community as following democratic principles. When it comes to staying in power, its just a recommended course of action with no recourse because they enforce these rules by corruption, force, peer pressure, and threats to individuals and families. Its the same old game that Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, and many other dictators in history. All these countries had constitutions, but no one was free to exercise their liberties. Venezula would be better off without Chavez, but who knows who will take his place. Chavez is in power because his shares the oil money with the lower and middle clasees. Thats how he stays in power. He has bought and paid for a place in the heart of the people. Rome did the same to stay in power. They feed the masses everyday. Politics No matter what the ideology has not changed in the last 4,000 years. Feed the masses and stay in power. THIS IS JUST ONE MANS OPINION.
Nyguy.. some very sharp observations of how dictators hijack constitions.Hitler won some kind of election and then used it put in a brutal genocidal mass murdering regime. In Egypt it looks similar.Dictators of a feather flock together!
When the Bloated Commie chavez is GONE, maybe it will be the start of a "Latino Spring." Good Riddance to socialist "hugo Trash!"
Oh boy, I'll bet Sean Penn has been crying himself to sleep every night trying to figure out how he's going to stay relevant without his communist buddy.
President Hugo Chavez wants his best friend Sean Penn to take his place if something happens to him.
Yeah so he can help sustain more tent cities like in Haiti .... Yet he lives in San Fran ....Go figure
Hugo;
Please languish and die as painfully as possible, and may your soul burn for all eternity in hell. You are the load your mother should have spit out in the street where she works.
Sincerely;
All Sane People of Earth
I have received anonymous information from a nurse at Havana's Cimeq Hospital, where Chavez is being treated. Our source says that Chavez is on a ventilator, unable to breath on his own. His condition has been diagnosed as "terminal". Physicians are expecting renal failure any time. I will post more as I get more information from our source.
Ok..... whatever you say .....and tell my uncles Fidel and Raul...mom said hello.
Rest in pieces .....
Actually you have a point, this could be the ONLY time Chavez could be useful, may he rest in pieces with organ donations to the millions worldwide on the waiting list
I would hope the Mack voters are aware of his blowing tax dollars. This mess is none of our business. The venezuelan voters are as stupid as us voters
Talk about "blowing tax dollars", that is exactly what Chavez does best. Takes from the most productive citizens and companies in Venezuela and supplie it to Chavez's Henchmen and cronies. Like a Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Venezuela had the freest press of ALL of South America in the Pre-Chavez days, it is now the MOST restrictive Press in ALL of South America. Too bad, the Taxaholic/Spendaholic Chaves is not humble enough to resign even when he himself knows he does not have the capacity to govern.
Disclosure: Lived in Caracas for 4 years
For all anyone knows this bombastic clown may be dead already and his cronies are afraid to admit it because then they may lose their hold on the government and their Fidelist agenda.
If an unbiased commitee of physicians say he can't proform the job, then adios amigo. New election, new presidente and good riddance to the laughing stock of Latin America.
Too bad one of Obama's biggest supporters is about to assume room temperature!