Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

 under the presidency of Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

(1999–present) has seen sweeping and radical shifts in social policy, moving away from the government officially embracing a free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

 economy and neoliberal

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...

 reform principles and towards quasi-socialist income redistribution and social welfare programs. Chávez has just as radically up-ended Venezuela's traditional foreign policy. Instead of continuing Venezuela's past support for U.S. and European strategic interests, Chávez has promoted alternative development and integration paradigms for the Global South

Third World

The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

.

Background: 1970–1992

Hugo Chávez's political activity began in the 1980s and '90s, a period of economic downturn and social upheaval in Venezuela.
Venezuela's economic wellbeing rises and falls with the demand for its primary export commodity – oil. Oil accounts for three-quarters of Venezuela's exports, half of its government's fiscal income, and a quarter of the nation's GDP.
The 1970s were boom years for oil, during which the material standard of living for all classes in Venezuela improved. This was partly due to the ruling AD and COPEI parties' investing in social welfare projects which, because of the government's oil income, they could do without heavily taxing private wealth.
"Venezuelan workers enjoyed the highest wages in Latin America and subsidies in food, health, education and transport." However, "toward the end of the 1970s, these tendencies began to reverse themselves."
Per capita oil income and per capita income both declined, leading to a foreign debt crisis and forced devaluation of the bolivar in 1983. The negative trend continued through the 1990s. "Per capita income in 1997 was 8 percent less than in 1970; workers' income during this period was reduced by approximately half." "Between 1984 and 1995 the percentage of people living below the poverty line jumped from 36 percent to 66 percent, while the number of people suffering from extreme poverty tripled, from 11 percent to 36 percent."

Along with these economic changes came various changes in Venezuelan society. Class division intensified. Lander (2007: 22) summarised these changes:

A sensation of insecurity became generalized throughout the population, constituting "an emerging culture of violence . . . very distinct from the culture of tolerance and peace that dominated Venezuelan society in the past." (Briceño León et al., 1997: 213). Along with unemployment, personal safety topped the problems perceived as most serious by the population. Between 1986 and 1996 the number of homicides per 10,000 inhabitants jumped from 13.4 to 56, an increade of 418 percent, with most of the victims being young males (San Juan, 1997: 232–233). Countless streets in the middle- and upper-class neighborhoods were closed and privatized; increasingly, bars and electric fences surrounded houses and buildings in these areas. The threat represented by the "dangerous class" came to occupy a central place in the media – along with demands that drastic measures be taken, including the death penalty or direct execution by the police.

During this period, the prospect of a reasonably comfortable life for most Venezuelans, which had appeared attainable in the 1970s, became increasingly remote; poverty and exclusion appeared inescapable for many. According to Lander (2007: 23):

These crises-like conditions increasingly became permanent features of society. We are dealing here not with the exclusion of a minority categorized as "marginal" in relation to society as a whole but with the living conditions and cultural reproduction of the great majority of the population. The result was the development of what Ivez Pedrazzini and Magalay Sánchez (1992) have called the "culture of urgency." They describe a practical culture of action in which the informal economy, illegality, illegitimacy, violence and mistrust of official society are common. Alejandro Moreno (1995) characterizes this other cultural universe as the popular-life world that is other, different from Western modernity – organized in terms of a matriarchal family structure, with different conceptions of time, work , and community, and a relational (community-oriented) rationality distinct from the abstract rationality of the dominant society. This cultural context is scarcely compatible with the model of citizenship associated with liberal democracies of the West.

On the political front, the AD's Carlos Andrés Pérez

Carlos Andrés Pérez

Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez , also known as CAP and often referred to as El Gocho , was a Venezuelan politician, President of Venezuela from 1974 to 1979 and again from 1989 to 1993. His first presidency was known as the Saudi Venezuela due to its economic and social prosperity thanks to...

 became president in 1989 on a platform of anti-neoliberalism, describing International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

 (IMF) structural adjustment recipes as "la-bomba-sola-mata-gente" – the bomb that only kills people. However, shortly after attaining office, Pérez, "faced with a severe crisis of international reserves, fiscal as well as trade and balance-of-payment deficits, and an external debt ($34 billion) that under these conditions could not be paid," signed a letter of intent with the International Monetary Fund stipulating that he carry out a neoliberal adjustment program that entailed privatisation, deregulation, and the dismantling of social welfare programs and subsidies.
The agreement was not submitted to parliamentary consultation and was made public only after having been signed. On 25 February 1989, the government announced an increase in gasoline prices, and two days later a public transit price rise precipitated the Caracazo

Caracazo

The Caracazo or sacudón is the name given to the wave of protests, riots and looting and ensuing massacre that occurred on 27 February 1989 in the Venezuelan capital Caracas and surrounding towns. The riots — the worst in Venezuelan history — resulted in a death toll of anywhere between...

, a series of mass demonstrations and riots in Caracas and Venezuela's other principal cities. Pérez suspended civil rights and imposed martial law. The military's suppression of the rebellion resulted in, by the government's own admission, 300 deaths; and others estimate the toll at more than 1000.

1992 and beyond

Chávez, who had been involved since the early 1980s in a leftist group in the military called the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 (MBR 200), first came to national prominence as the leader of a coup attempt on Pérez in February 1992. Although the attempt failed, before being imprisoned Chávez was granted one minute on national television, during which he apologised for the loss of lives and called on his forces to cease fighting, but also defended his goals of reform and stated famously that he was putting down his weapons "por ahora" – for now – implying that he might one day return. That brief television appearance gave Chávez national recognition and caused him to become for many a heroic symbol of resistance to the disliked regime.

Pérez survived another coup attempt in November 1992, but was impeached by Congress in 1993 for illegally using $17 million to finance the campaign of Violetta Chamorro in Nicaragua and his own inauguration fiesta. Rafael Caldera

Rafael Caldera

Rafael Antonio Caldera Rodríguez was president of Venezuela from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1994 to 1999.Caldera taught sociology and law at various universities before entering politics. He was a founding member of COPEI, Venezuela's Christian Democratic party...

, campaigning on an anti-neoliberal platform, succeeded him by winning elections in December 1993

Venezuelan presidential election, 1993

General elections were held in Venezuela on 5 December 1993. The presidential elections were won by Rafael Caldera of National Convergence, who received 30.5% of the vote. Democratic Action remained the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, which were elected on separate ballots for...

 with 30% of the vote to his nearest rival's 23%. As per one of his election promises, he released Chávez and other army dissidents in March 1994. Like Pérez, however, he reversed himself on economic policy, adopting IMF programs in 1996 and 1997 that stipulated neoliberal adjustment and opened the state oil industry to private investment. In November 1996, about 1.3 million workers walked off the job in a general public sector strike; and in late August 1998, Caldera obtained legislation from Congress enabling him to rule by decree.

During this period, the late 1990s, the principal leftist parties were La Causa Radical (LCR), which won 48 congressional seats in 1993, and the Movimiento al Socialismo

Movement for Socialism (Venezuela)

Movement for Socialism is a center-left political party in Venezuela.-History:The Movement for Socialism is a social-democratic political party in Venezuela. MAS was founded in 1971 by a faction of the Communist Party of Venezuela, with a view to emphasising a socialist message...

 (MAS). Hugo Chávez and the MBR 200 also remained active.
At the MBR 200 national assembly in December 1996, its members voted to participate in the upcoming 1998 presidential

Venezuelan presidential election, 1998

In the Venezuelan presidential election of 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected to his first term as President of Venezuela with the largest percentage of the popular vote in four decades...

 and 1998 parliamentary elections

Venezuelan parliamentary election, 1998

Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela on 8 November 1998. Democratic Action won a plurality of seats, winning 61 of the 207 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 21 of the 54 seats in the Senate. Voter turnout was 54.5% in the Senate elections and 52.7% in the Chamber...

, and created a new organisation, the Fifth Republic Movement

Fifth Republic Movement

The Fifth Republic Movement was a left-wing, Socialist political party in Venezuela. It was founded in July 1997, following a national congress of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, in the Venezuelan presidential...

 (Movimiento Quinta República, MVR) intended to unite groups opposed to the mainstream parties. Chávez's bid for the presidency was supported by a coalition called the Polo Patriótico (Patriotic Pole, PP) which, besides Chávez's MVR, included the PPT, and significant portions of the MAS, LCR, Movimiento Primero de Mayo, and Bandera Roja

Red Flag Party

Red Flag Party is a communist party in Venezuela. It was formed in 1970 by anti-revisionist members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left...

.

The major planks in the election platform enunciated by Chávez during his 1998 campaign included the following:

• Reorientation of the oil industry:
  • Cease privatisation of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela.
  • Review concessions that the state had granted to foreign oil companies
  • Redistribute income from the oil industry to more benefit the lower economic classes
• Pursue an economic course independent of global capitalist, especially United States, dictates; he characterised this as a "third way", an alternative to "neo-liberalismo salvage", "savage neo-liberalism"
• Rewrite the 1961 constitution. He proposed to hold a referendum seeking approval to dissolve Congress and convene an elected "constitutional assembly" whose task would be to write a new constitution
• Attack corruption, which he said eats up 15% of public revenues
• Crack down on the epidemic of tax evasion by major contributors
• Raise the minimum wage, provide a 30,000 Bolivar ($53) stipend to the unemployed, improve job security and retirement guarantees, increase spending on job creation and education.

1999: Economic crisis and new constitution

Chávez won the presidency on 6 December 1998 with 56.4% of the popular vote. His nearest opponent was Henrique Salas Römer

Henrique Salas Römer

Henrique Salas Römer is a Venezuelan capitalist economist , politically active in Venezuela since 1983.-Biography:He was the governor of Carabobo , being succeeded by his son, Henrique Salas Feo...

 with about 40%.
He took the presidential oath of office on 2 February 1999, the principal points of his mandate were to reform the constitution, break up what his supporters perceived as an entrenched oligarchy, reverse Venezuela's economic decline, strengthen the role of the state in the economy, and redistribute wealth to the poor. Chávez's first few months in office were dedicated primarily to constitutional reform, while his secondary focus was on immediately allocating more government funds to new social programs.

However, as a recession triggered by historically low oil prices and soaring international interest rates rocked Venezuela, the shrunken federal treasury provided very little of the resources Chávez required for his promised massive anti-poverty measures. Consequently, in April 1999 Chávez set his eyes upon the one Venezuelan institution that was costly for the government but did little for the systematic social development that Chávez desired: the military. Chávez ordered all branches of the military to devise programs to combat poverty and to further civic and social development in Venezuela's vast slum and rural areas. This civilian-military program was launched as "Plan Bolivar 2000

Plan Bolivar 2000

-Implementation of Plan Bolivar:The Plan Bolivar 2000 was a unique idea of Chavez. He wanted it to be implemented in three stages. Pro-Pais which is stage one would involve the armed forces working in the capacity of social service. The Pro-Patria, the second stage, would mean the military helping...

," and was heavily patterned after a similar program enacted by Cuban President Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

 during the early 1990s, while the Cuban people were still suffering through the "Special Period

Special Period

The Special Period in Time of Peace in Cuba was an extended period of economic crisis that began in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, by extension, the Comecon. The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early-to-mid 1990s before slightly declining...

." Projects within Plan Bolivar 2000s scope included road building, housing construction, and mass vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

. The plan faltered at the end of 2001 with accusations and revelations of corruption by military officers, including both military officers who later rebelled against the president in April 2002 and officers linked to the president.

Chávez sharply diverged from previous administrations' economic policies, terminating their practice of extensively privatizing

Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...

 Venezuela's state-owned holdings, such as the national social security system, holdings in the aluminum industry, and the oil sector. However, although Chávez wished to promote the redistribution of wealth, increased regulation, and social spending, he did not wish to discourage foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment or foreign investment refers to the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor.. It is the sum of equity capital,other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in...

 (FDI). In keeping with his predecessors, Chávez attempted to shore up FDI influxes to prevent an economic crisis of chronic capital flight

Capital flight

Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets and/or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an economic event and that disturbs investors and causes them to lower their valuation of the assets in that country, or otherwise to lose confidence in its economic...

 and inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

.

Chávez also worked to reduce Venezuelan oil extraction in the hopes of garnering elevated oil prices and, at least theoretically, elevated total oil revenues, thereby boosting Venezuela's severely deflated foreign exchange reserves. He extensively lobbied other OPEC countries to cut their production rates as well. As a result of these actions, Chávez became known as a "price hawk" in his dealings with the oil industry and OPEC. Chávez also attempted a comprehensive renegotiation of 60-year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil

Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...

. These agreements had allowed the corporations to pay in taxes as little as 1% of the tens of billions of dollars in revenues they were earning from the Venezuelan oil they were extracting. Afterwards, Chávez stated his intention to complete the nationalization of Venezuela's oil resources. Although unsuccessful in his attempts to renegotiate with the oil corporations, Chávez focused on his stated goal of improving both the fairness and efficiency of Venezuela's formerly lax tax collection and auditing

Financial audit

A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion...

 system, especially for major corporations and landholders.

New constitution

In April 1999, a national referendum was held, the question being whether to create an elected assembly to draw up a new Constitution of Venezuela

Constitution of Venezuela

||The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constitutional assembly that had been created by popular referendum. Adopted in December 1999, it replaced the 1961 Constitution - the longest...

. The result of the referendum was 71.8% in favour. Consequently, in July 1999, elections were held to choose delegates to the assembly. In these elections, Chávez's slate of candidates received 90% of the vote, winning 126 of the 131 seats. Fifty-four per cent of the eligible electorate did not vote.
The job of the assembly, which was called the Assemblea Nacional Constituyente

1999 Constituent Assembly of Venezuela

The 1999 Constituent Assembly of Venezuela was a constitutional convention held in Venezuela in 1999 to draft a new Constitution of Venezuela. The Assembly was endorsed by a referendum in April 1999 which enabled Constituent Assembly elections in July 1999...

 (ANC), was to come up with a new constitution in six months or less. The draft would then be submitted to the Venezuelan people for acceptance or rejection via a referendum. The Assembly set up 21 commissions to work on specific topics, including citizen power, indigenous rights, sovereignty, economic issues, defence, education, health, the environment, human rights, women, sport, culture and justice.

Conflict soon arose between the Constitutional Assembly and the older institutions it was supposed to reform or replace. During his 1998 presidential campaign, and in advance of the 25 July elections to the Assembly, Chávez had maintained that the new body would immediately have precedence over the existing National Assembly and the courts, including the power to dissolve them if it so chose.
Against this, some of his opponents, including notably the chief justice of the supreme court, Cecilia Sosa Gomez, argued that the Constitutional Assembly must remain subordinate to the existing institutions until the constitution it produced had been ratified.

In mid August 1999, the Constitutional Assembly moved to restructure the nations judiciary, giving itself the power to fire judges, seeking to expedite the investigations of corruption outstanding against what the New York Times estimated were nearly half of the nation's 4700 judges, clerks, and bailiffs.
On 23 August, the supreme court voted 8-6 that the Assembly was not acting unconstitutionally in assuming those powers; however, the next day Cecilia Sosa Gomez resigned in protest.
Over 190 judges were eventually suspended on charges of corruption.

On 25 August, the Constitutional Assembly declared a "legislative emergency," voting to limit the National Assembly's work to matters such as supervising the budget and communications. In response, the National Assembly, which in July had decided to go into recess until October to avoid conflict with the Constitutional Assembly, declared its recess over, effective 27 August.
At one point the Constitutional Assembly prohibited the National Assembly from holding meetings of any sort. However, on 10 September, the two bodies reached an agreement allowing for their "coexistence" until the new constitution took effect.

On 20 November 1999 the Constitutional Assembly presented the proposed constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

 that was to be accepted or rejected by the nation's voters. With 350 articles, it was one of the world's lengthiest. A general tendency of this Constitution is that it attempts to establish a participatory

Participatory democracy

Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...

 as well as a representative democracy

Representative democracy

Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...

. On specific points, it changes the country's official name from "Republic of Venezuela" to "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela." It also increased the presidential term of office from five to six years, allowed for two consecutive presidential terms rather than one, introduced a presidential two-term limit, and introduced provisions for national presidential recall referendums—that is, Venezuelan voters gained the right to remove the president from office before the expiration of his presidential term. Such referendums are activated by a petition to do so with the required number of signatures. The presidency was given more power, including the power to dissolve the National Assembly. The new constitution converted the formerly bicameral

Bicameralism

In the government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses....

 National Assembly into a unicameral

Unicameralism

In government, unicameralism is the practice of having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Thus, a unicameral parliament or unicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of one chamber or house...

 legislature, and stripped it of many of its former powers. Provisions were made for a new position, the Public Defender, an office with the authority to check the activities of the presidency, the National Assembly, and the constitution. Chávez characterized the Public Defender as the guardian of the "moral branch" of the new Venezuelan government, tasked with defending public and moral interests.
The constitution is unusual in that it incorporates as rights not only those, such as freedom of expression and assembly, found in most liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 constitutions, but also "social human rights:" to employment, housing, and health care.
Another innovation is that it gives international human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 treaties equal standing with the constitution, meaning that they must be enforced in the same way. The constitution gives women's rights

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 more prominence than do most others. It adopts the definition of discrimination used by the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women is an international convention adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly....

, which states that no policy may have the intention or the effect of abridging equality of rights between the sexes. (E.g., Venezuelan Constitution, Article 21.) The Constitution is perhaps unique in the world in recognising, in Article 88, "work at home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth. Homemakers are entitled to Social security in accordance with the law." The constitution commits the state to protecting various indigenous and environmental rights, and prohibits the patenting of the genes of living beings. Lastly, the Venezuelan judiciary was reformed. Judges, under the new constitution, are now to be installed after passing public examinations and not, as in the old manner, to be appointed by the National Assembly.

This new constitution

Constitution of Venezuela

||The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constitutional assembly that had been created by popular referendum. Adopted in December 1999, it replaced the 1961 Constitution - the longest...

 was approved by the national electorate on 15 December 1999, by 72% of those who voted. Over a span of a mere 60 days, the Constitutional Assembly thus framed a document that enshrined as constitutional law most of the structural changes Chávez desired. Chávez stated that such changes were necessary in order to successfully and comprehensively enact his planned social justice programs. He planned to enact sweeping changes in Venezuelan governmental and political structure, and, based on his 1998 campaign pledges, to dramatically open up Venezuelan political discourse to independent and third parties. In the process, Chávez sought to fatally paralyze his AD (Acción Democrática)

Democratic Action

Democratic Action is a centrist Venezuelan political party established in 1941. The party and its antecedents played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy, and led the government during Venezuela's first democratic period...

 and COPEI

COPEI

Copei – Social Christian Party of Venezuela is a third way political party in Venezuela. The name stands for Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente...

 opposition.

On 15 December 1999, after weeks of heavy rain, statewide mudslides

1999 Vargas mudslide

The 1999 Vargas tragedy was a disaster that struck the Vargas State of Venezuela in December 1999, when the torrential rains and the flash floods and debris flows that followed on 14–16 December killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed thousands of homes, and led to the complete collapse of...

 claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 people. Critics claim Chávez was distracted by the referendum and that the government ignored a civil defense report, calling for emergency measures, issued the day the floods struck. The government rejected these claims. Chávez personally led the relief effort afterwards. Subsequent mudslides in 2000 left 3 dead.

2000–2001: Re-election, rule by decree, land reform

Elections for the new unicameral National Assembly were held on 30 July 2000. During this same election, Chávez himself stood for reelection. Chávez's coalition garnered a commanding two-thirds majority of seats in the National Assembly while Chávez was reelected

Venezuelan presidential election, 2000

A presidential election was held in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on July 30, 2000. This was the first election held under Venezuela's newly adopted 1999 constitution.-Results:...

 with 60% of the votes. The Carter Center

Carter Center

The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...

 monitored the 2000 presidential election; their report on that election stated that, due to lack of transparency, CNE partiality, and political pressure from the Chávez government that resulted in early elections, it was unable to validate the official CNE results. However, they concluded that the presidential election legitimately expressed the will of the people.

Later, on 3 December 2000, local elections and a referendum were held. The referendum, backed by Chávez, proposed a law that would force Venezuela's labor unions to hold state-monitored elections. The referendum was widely condemned by international labor organisations—including the International Labour Organization

International Labour Organization

The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues pertaining to international labour standards. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Its secretariat — the people who are employed by it throughout the world — is known as the...

—as undue government interference in internal union matters; these organisations threatened to apply sanctions

International sanctions

International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally.There are several types of sanctions....

 on Venezuela.

Enabling act and rule by decree

After the May and July 2000 elections, Chávez backed the passage of a Ley Habilitante (enabling act

Enabling act

An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation...

) by the National Assembly. This act allowed Chávez to rule by decree

Rule by decree

Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick, unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group, and is used primarily by dictators and absolute monarchs, although philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben have argued that it has been generalized since World War I in all modern states,...

 for one year. In November 2001, shortly before the Enabling Act was set to expire, Chávez used it to put into place a set of 49 laws central to the implementation of his program. These included a Hydrocarbons Law and a Land Law. The Land Law, or Ley de Tierras, proposed giving some of the many Venezuelans who have constructed makeshift homes in the barrios that surround the country's major cities legal title to the land they occupy. It also contained provisions for rural land reform, including: incentives for people to return to the countryside and farm; tax penalties against leaving cultivable land idle (intended to encourage large land owners to sell plots to people who want to farm); grants of federal land to qualified farmers; and limited, compensated, expropriation of idle portions of privately-owned latifunda land for distribution to poor agriculturalists.

The 49 laws, representing as they did the first major concrete step toward economic redistribution, were strenuously resisted by business and the former political establishment. McCaughan (2004: 65, 68) describes them as the "plus ultra non," the "point of no return for Chávez's troubled relations with business, church and media leaders."
The Venezuelan Federation of Chambers (cámaras) of Commerce, – Fedecámaras

Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce

The Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce or Fedecámaras is composed of chambers of commerce in twelve basic trade groups: banking, agriculture, commerce, construction, energy, manufacturing, media, mining, ranching, insurance, transportation, and tourism.In practice, the intended...

 – and the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela

Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela

The Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela is a federation of labor unions in Venezuela. It has close links to the Democratic Action party....

 (CTV) – a labour union federation with strong links to the AD party – called for a general business strike

Strike action

Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

 (paro cívico) for 10 December 2001
to protest the 49 laws.
According to López Maya, at this time the president of the Fedecamaras, Pedro Carmona Estanga, emerged as the leader of the opposition movement. The paro "attracted thousands of people, many of them drawn by the employers' federation promise of a day's salary if they took to the streets."

Strikes and land reform

With the strike, the positions of both government and opposition became more intractable. The opposition warned that if the 49 laws were not amended, they would take to the streets again to attempt to force the issue, and later demanded the outright revocation of the laws. The government, for its part, refused to consider amending the laws.
By the end of the first three years of his presidency, Chávez had successfully initiated a land transfer

Land reform

[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

 program and had introduced several reforms aimed at improving the social welfare of the population. These reforms entailed the lowering of infant mortality rates; the implementation of a free, government-funded healthcare system; and free education up to the university level. By December 2001, inflation fell to 12.3% the lowest since 1986, while economic growth was steady at four percent. Chávez's administration also reported an increase in primary school enrollment by one million students.

2002: Coup and strike/lockout

The atmosphere of heightened confrontation initiated by the December 2001 paro cívico continued into the year 2002. The opposition formed a "Coordinating group for Democracy and Freedom," later known as the Democratic Coordinator (Coordinadora Democrática, CD) to organise joint action against the government. On 23 January, the opposition staged a massive march, which was met by a counter march by government sympathisers. On 4 February, a pro-government march was countered by opposition marches in several cities.

According to Francisco Rodríguez

Francisco Rodríguez (economist)

Francisco R. Rodríguez is a Venezuelan economist and assistant professor of Economicsand Latin American Studies at Wesleyan University since 2005, who was the head of the Office of Economic and Financial Advisory of the National Assembly from 2000 to 2004 during the presidency of Hugo...

, "real GDP contracted by 4.4 percent and the currency had lost more than 40 percent of its value in the first quarter of 2002 ... As early as January of that year, the Central Bank had already lost more than $7 billion in a futile attempt to defend the currency ... [an] economic crisis had started well before the political crisis—a fact that would be forgotten in the aftermath of the political tumult that followed." A few months after the coup, in December 2002, the Chávez presidency faced a two-month strike organized by management at the national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.

Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.

Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. is the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil, as well as exploration and production of natural gas...

 (PDVSA) when he took steps to dismiss 17,000 workers; the strike deepened the economic crisis and cut the government off from all-important oil revenue. The CTV, supported by Fedecámaras and other opposition groups, called for a one day strike for 9 April 2002; later it extended the strike for 24 hours, and then announced that it would be indefinite, and called for a march to the PDVSA headquarters in Caracas on 11 April in protest. On late morning of the 11th, by which time about 200,000 people were standing outside the PDVSA offices, CTV leader Carlos Ortega suddenly called for a continuation of the march to the presidential palace at Milaflores, saying "With a great sense of responsibility I address our nation to request in the name of democratic Venezuela. I do not rule out the possibility that the crowd, this human river marches united to Milaflores to expel a traitor to the Venezuelan people." and explicitly stated an objective to "remove Chávez." At this time, however, Milaflores was already surrounded by Chávez supporters who had been conducting a vigil there since 9 April to protect the president; and, when news of the opposition's movements spread, thousands more rushed there to augment the pro-Chávez side. By early afternoon the two sides were about 200 metres apart. Around 2:30, shooting began. The first victims were four pro-Chávez demonstrators who were hit by sniper fire from rooftops. Later, Chávez supporters with handguns were filmed shooting at an unidentified target from the Puente Llaguno bridge near Milaflores. People were killed on both sides. As might be expected, there was great confusion, and the exact account of events remains disputed.

After the shooting had begun, a group of dissident military officers, headed by Vice Admiral Ramirez Pérez, appeared on television and stated that "The President of the Republic has betrayed the trust of the people, he is massacring innocent people with snipers. Just now six people were killed and dozens wounded in Caracas." and that because of this they no longer recognised Chávez as president of Venezuela. The message had been pre-recorded in the morning.

Chávez took over the Venezuelan airwaves several times in the early afternoon in what is termed a cadena, or a commandeering of the media airwaves to broadcast public announcements, asking protesters to return to their homes, playing lengthy pre-recorded discourses, and attempting to block coverage of the ensuing violence.

Then, unexpectedly, Lucas Rincón Romero

Lucas Rincón Romero

General Lucas Rincón Romero was the highest-ranking Venezuelan military officer at the time of the 2002 coup d'état attempt against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez...

, commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan armed forces, announced in a broadcast to a nationwide audience that Chávez had tendered his resignation from the presidency. While Chávez was brought to a military base and held there, military leaders appointed the president of the Fedecámaras

Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce

The Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce or Fedecámaras is composed of chambers of commerce in twelve basic trade groups: banking, agriculture, commerce, construction, energy, manufacturing, media, mining, ranching, insurance, transportation, and tourism.In practice, the intended...

, Pedro Carmona

Pedro Carmona

Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga is a former Venezuelan trade organization leader who was briefly declared President of Venezuela during an abortive 2002 military coup against Hugo Chávez. He occupied the office of President from April 12 to April 13...

, as Venezuela's interim president. Immediately Carmona issued a decree nullifying the constitution, dissolving parliament and the supreme court, abolishing the ombudsman, and firing governors and mayors.
He also reverted the country's name to República de Venezuela and reversed Chávez's main social and economic policies, loosening credit controls and ending oil price quotas by raising production back to pre-Chávez levels. The US government quickly gave diplomatic recognition

Diplomatic recognition

Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...

 to the coup plotters.

Carmona's decrees were followed by pro-Chávez uprisings and looting across Caracas. Responding to these disturbances, Venezuelan soldiers loyal to Chávez called for massive popular support for a counter-coup. These soldiers later stormed and retook the presidential palace, and retrieved Chávez from captivity. The shortest-lived government in Venezuelan history was thus toppled, and Chávez resumed his presidency on the night of Saturday, 13 April 2002. Following this episode, Rincón was reappointed by Chávez as Commander of the Army, and later as Interior Minister in 2003.

Controversy about the coup

After Chávez resumed his presidency in April 2002, he ordered several investigations to be carried out, and their official results supported Chávez's assertions that the 2002 coup was sponsored by the United States. On 16 April 2002, Chávez claimed that a plane with U.S. registration numbers had visited and been berthed at Venezuela's Orchila Island airbase, where Chávez had been held captive. On 14 May 2002, Chávez alleged that he had definitive proof of U.S. military involvement in April's coup. He claimed that during the coup Venezuelan radar images had indicated the presence of U.S. military naval vessels and aircraft in Venezuelan waters and airspace. The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 published a claim by Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, D.C.-based author, columnist, and investigative journalistspecializing in intelligence and international affairs. He has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CounterPunch, CorpWatch, Multinational Monitor, CovertAction Quarterly, In These Times, and The...

 – a writer (at the time) for left-wing publications and a former Navy analyst and critic of the George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 administration – alleging U.S. Navy involvement. U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd

Christopher Dodd

Christopher John "Chris" Dodd is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress....

, D-CT, requested an investigation of concerns that Washington appeared to condone the removal of Mr Chavez, which subsequently found that "U.S. officials acted appropriately and did nothing to encourage an April coup against Venezuela's president", nor did they provide any naval logistical support. According to Democracy Now!

Democracy Now!

Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...

, CIA documents indicate that the Bush administration knew about a plot weeks before the April 2002 military coup. They cite a document dated 6 April 2002, which says: "dissident military factions... are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chávez, possibly as early as this month." According to William Brownfield

William Brownfield

William R. Brownfield is the current Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs as of January 10, 2011. . He has previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia....

, ambassador to Venezuela, the US embassy in Venezuela warned Chávez about a coup plot in April 2002. The United States Department of State

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

 and the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General

Office of the Inspector General

Office of the Inspector General is an office that is part of Cabinet departments and independent agencies of the United States federal government as well as some state and local governments. Each office includes an Inspector General and employees charged with identifying, auditing, and...

 found no evidence that "US assistance programs in Venezuela, including those funded by the National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

 (NED), were inconsistent with US law or policy" or "... directly contributed, or was intended to contribute, to [the coup d'état]." Payments by the NED had been stepped up in the weeks preceding the coup. According to The Observer, the coup was approved by the government of the United States, acting through senior officials, including Otto Reich

Otto Reich

Otto Juan Reich , a Cuban-American, is former senior official in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush...

 and Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams is an American attorney and neoconservative policy analyst who served in foreign policy positions for two Republican U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. While serving for Reagan and in the State Department, Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and retired U.S. Marine Corps officer...

, who had long histories in the US-backed "dirty wars" in Central America in the 1980s, and top coup plotters, including Pedro Carmona himself, began visits to the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 months before the coup and with the man President George Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.
Carmona also met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell

Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

 in Bogota, Colombia, on the second day of the 2002–2003 oil strike, and frequently met with the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Ann Paterson.

Chávez also claimed, during the coup's immediate aftermath, that the U.S. was still seeking his overthrow. On 6 October 2002, he stated that he had foiled a new coup plot, and on 20 October 2002, he stated that he had barely escaped an assassination attempt while returning from a trip to Europe. During that period, the US Ambassador to Venezuela warned the Chávez administration of two potential assassination plots.

After the coup

Following his return to office, Chávez quickly took steps to secure support for his government. First, Chávez fired sixty generals and completely replaced the upper echelons of Venezuela's armed forces, substituting them with more pro-Chávez personnel (including Rincón?). The preceding two sentences are at variance with the following source information: "The coup was defeated but Chávez opted not to move against all but the most visible leaders of the conspiracy. The absence of sanctions against the opposition was interpreted as a sign of government weakness."
Chávez attempted conciliation by replacing some of his cabinet ministers with people more acceptable to the opposition, reinstating the PDVSA managers who he had fired in February and removing their replacements, and inviting various international figures and organisations to the country to help mediate between the government and opposition.
Chávez also took another measure to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of the coup attempt: he sought to strengthen support among rank and file soldiers by boosting support programs, employment, and benefits for veterans. He also promulgated new civilian-military development initiatives.

Despite these measures, conflict simmered throughout the rest of 2002. On 22 October 14 military officers who had been suspended for participating in the coup, led by General Enrique Medina Gómez, occupied the Francia de Altamira Plaza in a wealthy Eastern Caracas neighbourhood and declared it a "liberated territory".
In early November, there was a major clash of government and opposition demonstrators in downtown Caracas; and, in the middle of the month, a shootout which resulted in three deaths occurred in Caracas' Bolivar Plaza between the Metropolitan Police and the National Guard.

Oil paro

Fedecámaras and the CTV called for a fourth paro cívico, which turned out to be the most serious, and is known as the 2002-2003 oil lockout/strike, to begin on 2 December 2002. The opposition also called a recall-referendum-petition-signature-gathering day for 4 December. The key element of the paro was the stoppage of production at Petróleos de Venezuela, which was effected by management's locking workers out of facilities. According to some sources, it also included changing computer passwords so as to disable equipment, and performing other acts of sabotage.
Petroleum production soon fell to one-third normal; Venezuela had to begin importing oil to meet its foreign obligations; and domestically, gasoline for cars became virtually unobtainable, with many filling stations closed and long queues at others.
Many privately-owned businesses closed or went on short time, some out of sympathy for the strike, others because of the fuel shortage and economic paralysis. The private media backed the strike: Eva Golinger

Eva Golinger

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney and editor of the Correo del Orinoco International, a web- and print-based newspaper which is financially backed by the Venezuelan government....

 writes that, "In support of the opposition's objectives, the private media symbolically joined the strike by suspending all regular programming and commercials and donating one hundred percent of air space to the opposition."
Large pro- and anti-Chávez marches were held in the first weeks of the strike, which on 9 December the opposition had declared to be of indefinite duration. Before the strike began to dissolve in February 2003, it produced severe economic dislocation. Reportedly, millions of citizens, even in the middle of Caracas, reverted to using wood fires to cook their food. The country's GDP fell 25% during the first trimester of 2003; open unemployment, which was running about 15% before and after the shutdown, reached 20.3% in March 2003; the volume of crude oil produced was 5% less in 2003 than the previous year; and the volume of refined oil products was 17% less.

The strike began to dissolve in February, 2003, when "small- and medium-sized businesses reopened their doors, admitting that the strike now threatened to turn into a 'suicide watch' that could well bankrupt their businesses for good." The government gradually reestablished control over PDVSA; oil production reached pre-strike levels by April 2003. In the aftermath of the strike, the government fired 18,000 PDVSA employees, 40% of the company's workforce, for "dereliction of duty" during the strike.

2003–2004: Recall vote

In 2003 and 2004 Chávez launched a number of social and economic campaigns which had become possible as for the first time he had a good economy and the oil industry, which produces 80% of Venezuela's exports by value, 25% of its GDP, and 50% of the government's income, was for the first time not under hostile management. In July 2003 he launched "Mission Robinson

Mission Robinson

Mission Robinson is one of the Bolivarian Missions implemented by the current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez...

," billed as a campaign aimed at providing free reading, writing and arithmetic lessons to the more than 1.5 million Venezuelan adults who were illiterate prior to his 1999 election. On 12 October 2003, Chávez initiated "Mission Guaicaipuro

Mission Guaicaipuro

Misión Guaicaipuro is one of the Bolivarian Missions implemented by current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez)...

," a program billed as protecting the livelihood, religion, land, culture, and rights of Venezuela's indigenous peoples. In late 2003, the Venezuelan president launched "Mission Sucre

Mission Sucre

Mission Sucre is one the Bolivarian Missions implemented by current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez...

" (named after independence-war hero General Antonio Jose de Sucre), which is primarily a scholarship program for higher education

Higher education

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

. As of about 2005, it was giving out about 100,000 need-based grants each year to bright students who would have been financially barred from university education in the past.
In November 2003, Chávez announced "Mission Ribas

Mission Ribas

Misión Ribas is a Venezuelan Bolivarian Mission that provides remedial high school level classes to the five million Venezuelan high school dropouts; named after independence hero José Félix Ribas....

," with the promise of providing remedial education and diplomas for Venezuela's five million high school dropouts. On the first anniversary of Mission Robinson's establishment, Chávez stated in Caracas's Teresa Carreño theater to an audience of 50,000 formerly illiterate Venezuelans, "in a year, we have graduated 1,250,000 Venezuelans." Nevertheless, there were also significant setbacks. Notably, the inflation rate rocketed to 31% in 2002 and remained at the high level of 27% in 2003, causing a great deal of hardship for the poor.

In 9 May 2004, a group of 126 Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

ns were captured during a raid of a farm near Caracas. Chávez soon accused them of being a foreign-funded paramilitary

Paramilitary

A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 force who intended to violently overthrow his rule. These events merely served to further the extreme and violent polarization of Venezuelan society between pro- and anti-Chávez camps. Chávez's allegations of a putative 2004 coup attempt

Putative Venezuelan coup attempt of 2004

The putative Venezuelan coup of 2004 was a hypothesized plot to overthrow Hugo Chávez, who is the current President of Venezuela. According to Chávez and his supporters, the capture of several dozen individuals in May 2004 and other developments prove the existence of the purported coup plot, while...

 continue to stir controversy and doubts to this day. In October 2005, 27 of the accused Colombians were found guilty, while the rest were released and deported.

In early and mid-2003, Súmate

Súmate

Súmate is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. Súmate describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monitoring group....

, a grassroots volunteer civilian voter rights organization, began the process of collecting the millions of signatures needed to activate the presidential recall provision provided for in Chávez's 1999 Constitution. In August 2003, around 3.2 million signatures were presented, but these were rejected by the pro-Chávez majority in the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE; "National Electoral Council") on the grounds that many had been collected before the mid-point of Chávez's presidential term. Reports then began to emerge among opposition and international news outlets that Chávez had begun to act punitively against those who had signed the petition, while pro-Chávez individuals stated that they had been coerced by employers into offering their signatures at their workplaces. In November 2003, the opposition collected an entirely new set of signatures, with 3.6 million names produced over a span of four days. Riots erupted nationwide as allegations of fraud were made by Chávez against the signature collectors.
The provision in the Constitution allowing for a presidential recall requires the signatures of 20% of the electorate in order to effect a recall. Further, the cedulas (national identity card numbers) and identities of petition signers are not secret, and in fact were made public by Luis Tascón

Luis Tascón

Luis Tascón Gutiérrez was a Venezuelan politician and member of the National Assembly. The son of Colombian-born parents, Tascón studied Electrical Engineering at the Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela...

, a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly

National Assembly of Venezuela

The National Assembly is the legislative branch of the Venezuelan government. It is a unicameral body made up of a variable number of members, who are elected by "universal, direct, personal, and secret" vote partly by direct election in state-based voting districts, and partly on a state-based...

 representing Chávez' party (Fifth Republic Movement

Fifth Republic Movement

The Fifth Republic Movement was a left-wing, Socialist political party in Venezuela. It was founded in July 1997, following a national congress of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, in the Venezuelan presidential...

 - MVR) and the Communist Party of Venezuela

Communist Party of Venezuela

The Communist Party of Venezuela is a Marxist-Leninist political party, and the oldest continuously existing party in Venezuela...

 of Táchira state. The government was accused of increasing the voter rolls by giving citizenship to illegal immigrants and refugees; and the opposition claimed that it was a citizenship for votes program. Voter registration increased by about 2 million people ahead of the referendum, which in effect raised the threshold of the 20% of the electorate needed to effect a recall.

Reports again emerged that Chávez and his allies were penalizing signers of the publicly posted petition. Charges were made of summary dismissals from government ministries, PDVSA, the state-owned water corporation, the Caracas Metro

Caracas Metro

The Caracas Metro is a mass rapid transit system serving Caracas, Venezuela. It is constructed and operated by Compañía Anónima Metro de Caracas, a government-owned company that was founded in 1977 by José González-Lander who headed the project for more than thirty years since the early planning...

, and public hospitals controlled by Chávez's political allies. Finally, after opposition leaders submitted to the CNE a valid petition with 2,436,830 signatures that requested a presidential recall referendum, a recall referendum was announced on 8 June 2004 by the CNE. Chávez and his political allies responded to this by mobilizing supporters to encourage rejection of the recall with a "no" vote.

The recall vote itself was held on 15 August 2004. A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote. The election was overseen by the Carter Center

Carter Center

The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...

 and the Organization of American States

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

, and was certified by them as fair and open. European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 observers did not attend, saying the government had placed too many restrictions on their participation. Critics called the results fraudulent, citing documents which indicated that the true results were the complete opposite of the reported ones, and raising questions about the government ownership of voting machines. "Massive fraud" was alleged and Carter's conclusions were questioned, although five other opposition polls showed a Chávez victory.

While the OAS observers and a reluctant Bush administration, endorsed the results, a few critics, including economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT, alleged that certain procedures in the election may have allowed the government to cheat. The Carter Center admitted Taylor had "found a mistake in one of the models of his analysis which lowered the predicted number of tied machines, but which still found the actual result to lie within statistical possibility."

A jubilant Chávez pledged to redouble his efforts against both poverty and "imperialism," while promising to foster dialogue with his opponents. Chávez's government subsequently charged the founders of Súmate

Súmate

Súmate is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. Súmate describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monitoring group....

 with treason and conspiracy for receiving foreign funds, earmarked for voter education, from the United States Department of State

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

 through the National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

, triggering commentary from human rights organizations and the U.S. government. The trial has been postponed several times. A program called "Mission Identity", to fast track voter registration of immigrants to Venezuela—including Chávez supporters benefiting from his subsidies—has been put in place prior to the upcoming 2006 presidential elections.

2004–2005: Focus on foreign relations

In the aftermath of his referendum victory, Chávez's primary objectives of fundamental social and economic transformation and redistribution accelerated dramatically. Chávez himself placed the development and implementation of the "Bolivarian Missions

Bolivarian Missions

The Bolivarian Missions are a series of social justice, social welfare, anti-poverty, educational, electoral and military recruiting programs implemented under the administration of the current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez...

" once again at the forefront of his political agenda. Sharp increases in global oil prices gave Chávez access to billions of dollars in extra foreign exchange reserves. Economic growth picked up markedly, reaching double-digit growth in 2004 and a 9.3% growth rate for 2005.

Many new policy initiatives were advanced by Chávez after 2004. In late March 2005, the Chávez government passed a series of media regulations that criminalised broadcasted libel and slander directed against public officials; prison sentences of up to 40 months for serious instances of character defamation launched against Chávez and other officials were enacted. When asked if he would ever actually move to use the 40-month sentence if a media figure insulted him, Chávez remarked that "I don't care if they [the private media] call me names.... As Don Quixote said, 'If the dogs are barking, it is because we are working.'" Chávez also worked to expand his land redistribution and social welfare programs by authorizing and funding a multitude of new "Bolivarian Missions," including "Mission Vuelta al Campo

Mission Vuelta al Campo

Mission Vuelta al Campo is one of the Bolivarian Missions implemented by current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez...

"; the second and third phases of "Mission Barrio Adentro

Mission Barrio Adentro

Mission Barrio Adentro is a Bolivarian national social welfare program established under current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The program seeks to provide comprehensive publicly-funded health care, dental care, and sports training to poor and marginalized communities in Venezuela...

," both first initiated in June 2005 with the stated aim of constructing, funding, and refurbishing secondary (integrated diagnostic center) and tertiary (hospital) public health care facilities nationwide; and "Mission Miranda

Mission Miranda

Mission Miranda is one of the Bolivarian Missions implemented by current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The program establishes a Venezuelan military reserve composed of ordinary Venezuelan citizens given light arms to defend the territory in the case of an invasion...

, which established a national citizen's militia. Meanwhile, Venezuela's doctors went on strike, protesting the siphoning of public funds from their existing institutions to these new Bolivarian ones, run by Cuban doctors.

Chávez focused considerably on Venezuela's foreign relations in 2004 and 2005 via new bilateral and multilateral agreements, including humanitarian aid

Humanitarian aid

Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...

 and construction projects. Chávez has engaged, with varying degrees of success, numerous other foreign leaders, including Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

's Néstor Kirchner

Néstor Kirchner

Néstor Carlos Kirchner was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations ...

, China's Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao is the current Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang...

, Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

's Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia's Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

. On 4 March 2005, Chávez publicly declared that the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas

Free Trade Area of the Americas

The Free Trade Area of the Americas , , ) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas but Cuba. In the last round of negotiations, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, United States, in November 2003 to discuss the proposal...

 (FTAA) was "dead." Chávez stated that the neoliberal model of development had utterly failed in improving the lives of Latin Americans, and that an alternative, anti-capitalist model would be conceived in order to increase trade and relations between Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. Chávez also stated his desire that a leftist, Latin American analogue of NATO be established.

Over the course of 2004 and 2005, the Venezuelan military under Chávez also began in earnest to reduce weaponry sourcing and military ties with the United States. Chávez's Venezuela is thus increasingly purchasing arms from alternative sources, such as Brazil, Russia, China and Spain. Friction over these sales escalated, and in response Chávez ended cooperation between the militaries of the two countries. He also asked all active-duty U.S. soldiers to leave Venezuela. Additionally, in 2005 Chávez announced the creation of a large "military reserve"—the Mission Miranda program, which encompasses a militia of 1.5 million citizens—as a defensive measure against foreign intervention or outright invasion. Additionally, in October 2005, Chávez banished the Christian missionary organization "New Tribes Mission

New Tribes Mission

New Tribes Mission is an international, theologically evangelical Christian mission organization based in Sanford, Florida, United States. NTM has approximately 3,300 missionaries in more than 20 nations, second only to Wycliffe Bible Translators/SIL International David Hesselgrave, Executive...

" from the country, accusing it of "imperialist infiltration" and harboring connections with the CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

. At the same time, he granted inalienable titles to over 6,800 square kilometers of land traditionally inhabited by Amazonian indigenous peoples to their respective resident natives, though this land could not be bought or sold as Western-style title deeds can. Chávez cited these changes as evidence that his revolution was also a revolution for the defense of indigenous rights, such as those promoted by Chávez's Mission Guaicaipuro

Mission Guaicaipuro

Misión Guaicaipuro is one of the Bolivarian Missions implemented by current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez)...

.

During this period, Chávez placed much greater emphasis on alternative economic development and international trade models, much of it in the form of extremely ambitious hemisphere-wide international aid agreements. For example, on 20 August 2005, during the first graduation of international scholarship students from Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine, Chávez announced that he would jointly establish with Cuba a second such medical school that would provide tuition-free medical training—an ex gratia

Ex gratia

Ex gratia is Latin for "by favour", and is most often used in a legal context. When something has been done ex gratia, it has been done voluntarily, out of kindness or grace...

 project valued at between $20 and 30 billion—to more than 100,000 physicians who would pledge to work in the poorest communities of the Global South. He announced that the project would run for the next decade, and that the new school would include at least 30,000 new places for poor students from both Latin America and the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

.

Chávez has also taken ample opportunity on the international stage to juxtapose such projects with the manifest results and workings of neoliberal globalization. Most notably, during his speech at the 2005 UN World Summit, he denounced development models that are organised around neoliberal guidelines such as liberalisation of capital flows, removal of trade barriers, and privatisation as the reason for the developing world's impoverishment. Chávez also went on to warn of an imminent global energy famine brought about by hydrocarbon

Hydrocarbon

In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....

 depletion (based on Hubbert peak theory

Hubbert peak theory

The Hubbert peak theory posits that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve...

), stating that "we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis.... Oil is starting to become exhausted." Additionally, on 7 November 2005, Chávez referenced the stalling of the FTAA, stating at the Fourth Summit of the Americas

Mar del Plata Summit of the Americas

The 4th Summit of the Americas was held at Mar del Plata, about southeast of Buenos Aires in Argentina, on November 4-5, 2005.This summit gathered together the leaders of all the countries of the American continent, except Cuba. Major security arrangements and massive popular protests against the...

, held in Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, that "the great loser today was George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

. The man went away wounded. You could see defeat on his face." Chávez took the same opportunity to state that "the taste of victory" was apparent with regards to the promotion of his own trade alternative, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean...

 (ALBA—Alternativa Bolivariana para América), which Venezuela and Cuba inaugurated on 14 December 2004.

In 2005, Chávez demanded the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist and former Central Intelligence Agency agent....

, accused of conspiring to bomb Cubana Flight 455

Cubana Flight 455

Cubana Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down by a terrorist attack on October 6, 1976. All 78 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed in what was then the deadliest terrorist airline attack in the Western hemisphere...

. A Texas judge blocked the extradition on the grounds that he could be tortured in Venezuela; the Venezuelan embassy blamed the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to contest such accusations during the trial. Chávez also requested the extradition of former Venezuelan officers and members of Militares democraticos, Lt. German Rodolfo Varela and Lt. Jose Antonio Colina, who are wanted for bombing the Spanish and Colombian embassies after Chávez made a speech criticizing both governments.

2006–2008

The BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 says that Chavez "has made no secret of the fact that he is in favour of amending the constitution so that he can run again for president in 2012." He has stated that he intends to retire from the Venezuelan presidency in the year 2021 http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/internacionales/466530.html. He is currently seeking re-election and his approval ratings as of August stood at 55%.

In 2006 Chávez announced Venezuela's bid to win a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council; Washington officials encouraged Latin American and Caribbean nations to vote instead for Guatemala. Analysts quoted by Forbes Magazine said that Chávez would offer to supply 20% of China's crude oil needs if Beijing backed Venezuela's bid to join the UN Security Council. In Chile, the press was concerned that Venezuelan grants for flood aid might affect the government's decision about which country to support for admission to the UN Security Council. However, Venezuela was never able to obtain more votes than Guatemala in the forty-one separate UN votes in October 2006 . Because of this deadlock in voting, Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

 was selected as a consensus candidate and subsequently won the election for Latin America's seat on the Security Council.

In accordance with his foreign policy trends, Chávez has visited several countries in Latin America, as well as Portugal, Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

, Russia, Qatar

Qatar

Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

 and Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

. At the request of Gambian

The Gambia

The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....

 President Yahya Jammeh

Yahya Jammeh

Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh is the President of The Gambia...

, Chávez also attended the 2006 summit of the African Union

African Union

The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002, the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity...

 in Banjul

Banjul

-Transport:Ferries sail from Banjul to Barra. The city is served by the Banjul International Airport. Banjul is on the Trans–West African Coastal Highway connecting it to Dakar and Bissau, and will eventually provide a paved highway link to 11 other nations of ECOWAS.Banjul International Airport...

. He also visited the People's Republic of China and Malaysia.

In 2006 Chavez accused the United States government of attempting to turn Colombia into Venezuela's adversary over the recent arms dispute. “The U.S. empire doesn't lose a chance to attack us and try to create discord between us. That's one of the empire's strategies: Try to keep us divided.” Chavez said in response to the United States government.

Chávez again won the OAS and Carter Center certification of the national election

Venezuelan presidential election, 2006

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela held presidential elections on 3 December 2006, to choose a president for the six-year term to begin on 10 January 2007...

 on 3 December 2006 with 63% of the vote, beating his closest challenger Manuel Rosales

Manuel Rosales

Manuel Antonio Rosales Guerrero is a Venezuelan educator and politician and was the most prominent opposition candidate in the 2006 presidential election, losing to incumbent Hugo Chávez...

 who conceded his loss on 4 December 2006. After his victory, Chávez promised a more radical turn towards socialism.

According to Datos Information Resources, family income among the poorest stratum grew more than 150% between 2003 and 2006.

On 8 January 2007 President Chávez installed a new cabinet, replacing most of the ministers. Jorge Rodríguez

Jorge Rodríguez (politician)

Dr. Jorge Rodríguez Gómez is a Venezuelan politician and psychiatrist who was Vice President of Venezuela from January 2007 to January 2008. He is currently the Mayor of the Libertador Municipality in Caracas....

 was designated the new Vice President, replacing José Vicente Rangel

José Vicente Rangel

José Vicente Rangel Vale is a Venezuelan leftist politician. He ran for President three times in the 1970s and 1980s and later supported Hugo Chávez, successively becoming Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, and Vice President in Chávez's government.-Political activism:His political activism began...

. Chávez announced that he will send to the National Assembly

National Assembly of Venezuela

The National Assembly is the legislative branch of the Venezuelan government. It is a unicameral body made up of a variable number of members, who are elected by "universal, direct, personal, and secret" vote partly by direct election in state-based voting districts, and partly on a state-based...

 a new enabling act

Enabling act

An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation...

, asking for the authority to re-nationalize the biggest phone company of the country (Cantv

CANTV

CANTV is one of the first telephone service enterprises in Venezuela, founded in 1930. The company was re-nationalized in 2007.As of May 9, 2008, Cantv’s customer base numbered 10.1 million mobile subscribers, 5.2 million fixed telephony subscribers and 1,000,000 broadband subscribers.- Origins...

), and other companies from the electrical sector, all previously public companies which were privatized by past administrations. He also asked to eliminate the autonomy

Autonomy

Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 of the Central Bank.

On 31 January 2007 the Venezuelan National Assembly approved an enabling act

Enabling act

An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation...

 granting Chávez the power to rule by decree

Rule by decree

Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick, unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group, and is used primarily by dictators and absolute monarchs, although philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben have argued that it has been generalized since World War I in all modern states,...

 in certain areas for 18 months. He plans to continue his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Revolution

The “Bolivarian Revolution” refers to a leftist social movement and political process in Venezuela led by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement...

, enacting economic and social changes. He has said he wants to nationalize

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 key sectors of the economy. Chávez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, says the legislation will be the start of a new era of "maximum revolution" during which he will consolidate Venezuela's transformation into a socialist society. A few critics, however, are calling it a step towards greater authority

Authority

The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

 by a leader with unchecked power.

On 8 February 2007 the Venezuelan government signed an agreement to buy an 82.14% stake in Electricidad de Caracas

Electricidad de Caracas

Electricidad de Caracas is the integrated electricity company for Caracas, Venezuela and surrounding areas, with more than 1 million connections. It was acquired by AES Corporation in 2000 and sold to the state-owned oil company PDVSA in 2007, which now owns 93.62%...

 from AES Corporation

AES Corporation

AES Corporation is a Fortune 500 company that generates and distributes electrical power. The company was founded on January 28, 1981, as Applied Energy Services by Roger Sant from the US Federal Energy Administration and Dennis Bakke from the Office of Management and Budget. AES Corporation is...

. Paul Hanrahan, president and CEO of AES said the deal has been a fair process that respected the rights of investors.
In February 2007, the Venezuelan government bought a 28.5% stake of the shares of CANTV

CANTV

CANTV is one of the first telephone service enterprises in Venezuela, founded in 1930. The company was re-nationalized in 2007.As of May 9, 2008, Cantv’s customer base numbered 10.1 million mobile subscribers, 5.2 million fixed telephony subscribers and 1,000,000 broadband subscribers.- Origins...

 from Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications Inc. is a global broadband and telecommunications company and a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average...

.

On 30 April 2007 Chávez announced that Venezuela would be formally pulling out of the International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

 (IMF) and the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, having paid off its debts five years ahead of schedule and so saving US $8 million. The debt was US $3 billion in 1999. Chávez then announced the creation of a regional bank, the Bank of the South, and said that the IMF and the World Bank were in crisis.

The next day he announced intentions to re-take control of oil projects in the Orinoco Belt

Orinoco Belt

The Orinoco Belt is a territory which occupies the southern strip of the eastern Orinoco River Basin in Venezuela. Its local Spanish name is Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco ....

, which he said are "the world's largest crude reserve." These reserves, which can be exploited with modern technologies, may place Venezuela ahead of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 in terms of oil reserves.

In May 2007, the Chavez government refused to renew the license of the nation's most popular television station, alleging the company participated in the 2002 coup d'état. This led to many, prolonged protests

May 2007 RCTV protests

The May – June 2007 RCTV protests were a series of protests in Venezuela that began in the middle of May 2007. The cause of the protests was the refusal by the government to renew the broadcasting license of Venezuela's oldest private television network, Radio Caracas Televisión , instead creating...

 in Caracas. Also, tens of thousands have marched through Caracas to support President Chávez's decision.

Speech to the United Nations

On 20 September 2006, Chávez delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly

United Nations General Assembly

For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...

 damning U.S. President George Bush. In the speech Chavez referred to Bush as "the devil," adding that Bush, who had given a speech to the assembly a day earlier, had come to the General Assembly to "share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world." Although it was widely condemned by U.S. politicians and media , the speech was received with "wild applause" in the Assembly.

Subsidising heating fuel for the poor in the U.S.

In 2005, President Chávez initiated a program to provide cheaper heating fuel for poor people in several areas of the United States (New York Daily News, 21 September 2006). The program was expanded in September 2006 to include four of New York City's five boroughs, earmarking 25 million gallons of fuel for low-income New York residents this year at 40% off the wholesale market price. That quantity provides sufficient fuel to heat 70,000 apartments, covering 200,000 New Yorkers, for the entire winter (New York Daily News, 21 September 2006). It has also been reported that Chavez is sending heating oil to poor, remote villages in Alaska. Some have questioned the motives of this generosity. Legislative leaders in Maine have asked that state's governor to refuse the subsidised oil, and New York Daily News

New York Daily News

The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

 criticized his offer by calling him an "oil pimp."

Latin American Summit incident

In November 2007 at the Ibero-American Summit

Ibero-American Summit

The Ibero-American Summit , is a yearly meeting of the heads of government and state of the Spanish-...

 in Santiago de Chile, Chávez and Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...

 were engaged in a heated exchange. Chávez, irritated by Zapatero's suggestion that Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 needed to attract more foreign capital, referred to Spain's former prime minister, José María Aznar

José María Aznar

José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...

, as a fascist. Zapatero asked Chávez to use proper decorum. Although his microphone had by that point been turned off as his time was up, Zapatero was within earshot and engaged with Chávez who continued to interrupt the prime minister, attempting to make a point. King Juan Carlos I of Spain

Juan Carlos I of Spain

Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...

 then leaned forward and pointed his finger at Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, telling him, "¿Por qué no te callas?

¿Por qué no te callas?

¿Por qué no te callas? is a phrase that was uttered by King Juan Carlos I of Spain to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, at the 2007 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, when Chávez was interrupting Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's speech...

" (Why don't you shut up?).
Chávez later said he did not hear Juan Carlos. President Daniel Ortega

Daniel Ortega

José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician and revolutionary, currently serving as the 83rd President of Nicaragua, a position that he has held since 2007. He previously served as the 79th President, between 1985 and 1990, and for much of his life, has been a leader in the Sandinista...

 of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

, next to speak, ceded a minute of his time to Chávez to allow him to finish his point. Ortega then proceeded to add emphasis to Chávez's points by suggesting that Spain had used intervention in his country's elections. Ortega also referred to the monopoly of the Spanish energy company Union Fenosa

Unión Fenosa

Unión Fenosa, S.A., is a large Spanish company dedicated to the production and distribution to end users of gas and electricity. It has installed capacity of 11,120 megawatts of power and 8.9 million customers. The headquarters are in Madrid and the chairman is Pedro López Jiménez...

 on the impoverished counties' privatized power utility. The king, followed by an aide, stood up and walked out of the event—an unprecedented diplomatic incident, especially because the king had never before shown any sign of irritability.

Constitutional referendum

On 15 August 2007, Chavez called for an end to presidential term limit

Term limit

A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...

s. He also proposed limiting central bank autonomy, strengthening state expropriation

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 powers and providing for public control over international reserves as part of an overhaul of Venezuela's constitution. In accordance with the 1999 constitution, Chavez proposed the changes to the constitution, which were then approved by the National Assembly. The final test was a 2 December 2007 referendum.

On 1 November 2007, a massive protest was staged in Caracas, led by many Venezuelan students, calling on the National Electoral Council

National Electoral Council (Venezuela)

The National Electoral Council is one of the five independent branches of government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It is the institution that oversees and guarantees the transparency of all elections and referendums in Venezuela at the local, regional, and national levels...

 in Caracas to postpone the referendum on the proposed constitutional reforms. Chavistas holding a demonstration in support of the reforms clashed with the protesters and the scene turned violent, prompting police action. Since then, the global community has criticized Chavez for excessive police action. The President denounced the opposition protest as resorting to "fascist

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 violence" on 9 November 2007.

On 26 November 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated an alleged confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA. The memo allegedly contains an update on US clandestine operations against the Chavez government. Although Independent analysts find it to be "quite suspect." Two days before the constitutional referendum

Venezuelan constitutional referendum, 2007

A constitutional referendum was held in Venezuela on 2 December 2007 to amend 69 articles of the 1999 Constitution. Reform was needed, according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, to implement his socialist agenda; detractors said he was using the reforms to become a dictator.The referendum was...

, Chávez threatened to cut off oil shipments to the US if it criticized the voting results.

The referendum was defeated on 2 December 2007, with 51% of the voters rejecting the amendments proposed by Chávez. Chávez stated that he would step down at the end of his second term in 2013. In November 2008, he proposed another constitutional amendment removing term limits, so that he could remain in office until as late as 2021. This time, the resolution passed with 54% voting in favor after 94% of the votes have been counted.

From 2009: Term limits eliminated and human rights

On 15 February 2009, Chávez won a referendum to eliminate term limits

Venezuelan constitutional referendum, 2009

The 2009 referendum was a vote in which the citizens of Venezuela approved Amendment No. 1 of the Constitution of Venezuela; this abolished term limits for the offices of President, state governors, mayors and National Assembly deputies.The current constitution, enacted in 1999 by referendum,...

, allowing him to run for re-election indefinitely. Polls show most Venezuelans do not want him to continue indefinitely; increasing concern over crime, the economy, and infrastructure; and increasing consolidation of power. A staunch former ally who was instrumental in returning Chávez to power in 2002, Raúl Baduel

Raúl Baduel

Raúl Isaías Baduel is a Venezuelan politician, retired general, and former Defense Minister under President Hugo Chávez. He was a member of Chavez' MBR-200, joining in December 1982.-Military:...

, broke with Chávez after being charged with corruption and accused him of being a tyrant.

In March 2009 the Venezuelan government banned trawl fishing, largely employed by shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

 boats for shrimp exports, in a measure aimed at supporting coastal biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

 and supporting the livelihoods of small fishermen. Small-scale fishermen, who account for 70% of Venezuela's fish production, have petitioned for the measure for decades.

A 2010 OAS report indicated "achievements with regard to the eradication of illiteracy, the set up of a primary health network, land distribution and the reduction of poverty", and "improvements in the areas of economic, social, and cultural rights". The report also found "blistering" concerns with freedom of expression, human rights abuses, authoritarianism, press freedom, control of the judiciary, threats to democracy, political intimidation, and "the existence of a pattern of impunity in cases of violence, which particularly affects media workers, human rights defenders, trade unionists, participants in public demonstrations, people held in custody, 'campesinos' (small-scale and subsistence farmers), indigenous people, and women", as well as erosion of separation of powers and "severe economic, infrastructure, and social headaches", and "chronic problems including power blackouts, soaring crime, and a perceived lack of investment in crucial sectors". According to the National Public Radio, the report discusses decreasing rights of opposition to the government and "goes into heavy detail" about control of the judiciary. It says elections are free, but the state has increasing control over media and state resources used during election campaigns, and opposition elected officials have "been prevented from actually carrying out their duties afterward". CNN says the "lack of independence by Venezuela's judiciary and legislature in their dealings with leftist President Hugo Chavez often leads to the abuses", and the Wall Street Journal blames the government of Chavez.

Chávez rejected the 2010 OAS report, calling it "pure garbage", and said Venezuela should boycott the OAS; a spokesperson said, "We don't recognize the commission as an impartial institution". He disclaims any power to influence the judiciary. A Venezuelan official said the report distorts and takes statistics out of context, saying that "human rights violations in Venezuela have decreased".

Sources

• Roberto Briceño León et al., "La cultura emergente de la violencia en Caracas," Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, 3, nos. 2-3, (1997).
• Eva Golinger
  Eva Golinger
  Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney and editor of the Correo del Orinoco International, a web- and print-based newspaper which is financially backed by the Venezuelan government....
  
  , Esq., "The Adaptable U.S. Intervention Machine in Venezuela," in Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, The Venezuela Reader, Washington D.C., U.S.A., 2005.
• Edgardo Lander, "Venezuela's Social Conflict in a Global Context", in Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas, Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an "Exceptional Democracy." Lanham, Maryland, USA, 2007.
• Margarita López Maya, "Venezuela 2002-2003: Polarization, Confrontation, and Violence," in Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, The Venezuela Reader, Washington D.C., U.S.A., 2005.
• Michael McCaughan, The Battle of Venezuela. London, 2004.
• Alejandro Moreno, 'El aro y la trama: episteme, modernidad y pueblo. Caracas, 1995.
• Ives Pedrazzini and Magaly Sánchez, Malandros, bandas y ni os de la calle. Valencia, Venezuela, 1992.
• Ana Maria San Juan, "La criminalidad en Caracas," Revista Venezolanoa de Economía y Ciencias Sociales 3, nos. 2-3 (April–September 1997).
• Eric Wingerter, "A People's Platform: Land Reform, Health Care and Literacy," in Olivia Burlingame Goumbri, The Venezuela Reader, Washington D.C., U.S.A., 2005.