Venezuelan court voids power yank
After protests, congress re-empowered
IQUITOS, Peru — Venezuela’s Supreme Court on Saturday reversed parts of a decision to strip the national legislature of its powers, an abrupt shift that came during mounting domestic and international criticism that the country was edging toward dictatorship.
President Nicolas Maduro had asked the Supreme Court in a late-night speech to review a ruling that nullified the branch of power and set off a storm of criticism from the opposition and foreign governments. The court on Saturday reinstated congress’s authority.
It was an unexpected instance of the embattled socialist president backing away from a move to increase his power. Opposition leaders dismissed the reversal as too little too late. They said the clarification issued
the judges only proved yet again that Maduro controls the courts and that there is no longer a real separation of powers in Venezuela.
“The dire situation we’re living through in Venezuela remains the same. There is nothing to ‘clarify’ when it comes to respecting the constitution,” said moderate leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.
Yet some critics celebrated the reversal as proof that cracks are beginning to show in Maduro’s control of a country spiraling into chaos, with his approval ratings dipping below 20 percent amid the worsening economic and humanitarian crisis.
Opposition leaders recast a planned Saturday protest as an open air meeting. Hundreds of supporters joined members of congress in a wealthy Caracas neighborhood to celebrate the ruling.
Later, soldiers fired tear gas on activists who attempted to march on government offices downtown and blocked their path with barricades and armored cars. Some protesters jumped atop the military vehicles and made triumphant gestures.
“It’s not clear exactly how wounded the government is. This is the first time since the opposition won the National Assembly in 2015 that they have managed to get the president to reverse a decision. So this is huge,” said Javier Corrales, who teaches Latin American politics at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
The state television network VTV on Saturday, in publishing summaries of the court’s most recent rulings, revealed that the judges had “suppressed” parts of an earlier decision to nullify the legislature and allow the court to write laws itself. Maikel Moreno, the court’s chief judge, said in an address Saturday afternoon that the court had also reversed a decision to strip lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution.
The court’s initial ruling, published Wednesday night, prompted widespread anger because it removed what most consider to be the last remaining check to Maduro’s growing power, the opposition-controlled legislature. The court, packed with judges loyal to Maduro, is considered to be controlled by the president.
Saturday’s decision appeared to have support among top officials in Maduro’s government. Ernesto Villegas, the information minister, characterized the previous rulings as a mistake when he said Saturday on Twitter that the court was “correcting the rulings.”
But as of midday Saturday, the court itself had not published its rulings on its website, leaving it unclear how far the court planned to go in restoring the legislature’s powers, which it has been chipping away at for more than a year.
Critics say the court’s assault on the legislature is part of a longer slide away from democracy that has come as the government’s popularity has declined amid the worst economic crisis in recent memory. Falling oil prices and years of economic mismanagement have left many Venezuelans facing shortages of food and basic medicines, setting off widespread protests.
The government is holding at least 114 political prisoners, according to Penal Forum, a human-rights group. Local elections that were to have been held last year have been postponed.
Some analysts said they did not believe the dispute between the court and lawmakers was over.
Margarita Lopez Maya, a Venezuelan political scientist, said the court appeared to still hold the legislature “in a situation of contempt,” meaning that it might not be able to pass laws, even if the court agreed not to take over its legislative powers.
The court has also spent the past year overturning major decisions made by the chamber, Lopez said, including a law granting amnesty to political prisoners and moves to block the president from expanding his power over the economy. That stalemate, she added, seemed unlikely to change.
“It’s like a chess game where you just moved one pawn,” she said.
But the court’s backtracking revealed dissenters within Maduro’s movement.
Chief among them was Luisa Ortega, the attorney general, who Friday issued a rebuke to the president, holding a news conference in which she said the rulings violated the inclusive spirit of Venezuby ela’s laws. The decision by the court represented “a rupture in the constitutional order,” Ortega said.
Ortega, a longtime follower of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has remained loyal to Maduro. But she emerged as a leading critic when she spoke out against a massacre of civilians by the military in the Barlovento region, outside Caracas, in October.
“She has been less beholden to Madurism,” said a column in the weekly newspaper TalCual, adding that the leftist movement was showing signs of fracturing.
The court’s decision generated condemnation outside Venezuela as well, with critics saying the country had become a dictatorship in all but name.
The Organization of American States — a regional body that aims to promote democracy, trade, and economic and social development — called the move a “self-inflicted coup,” while the United States and other countries condemned the decision as eroding the country’s democracy.
“What we have warned of has finally come to pass,” said Luis Almagro, the secretary-general of the organization, who has spent much of the past year chastising the government, even accusing Maduro of aiming to become a “petty dictator.”
Maduro remained silent during much of the two days since Wednesday’s ruling. Then on Saturday, dressed in black and waving a copy of Venezuelan constitution, he likened the international condemnation to a “political lynching.”
He concluded his remarks with a call for more dialogue.
“I’m ready with whoever is willing,” he said.