Venezuela leaps towards dictatorship

EVEN before Venezuela’s supreme court seized the powers of the legislature, the last branch of government that is independent of the “Bolivarian” regime, the country was on a path towards dictatorship. The judiciary, which slavishly carries out the government’s bidding, had already invalidated or ignored all the laws passed by the legislature since the opposition won control in an election in December 2015. Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s deeply unpopular president, had the supreme court rubber-stamp his budget rather than submitting it to the national assembly, in violation of the constitution. The court stripped the legislature of its power to name members of the electoral council.

Now it has gone further. On March 29th the supreme court’s constitutional chamber said it would “ensure that the parliamentary powers are exercised directly by this chamber or by the body it appoints”. Its excuse is that the legislature is in contempt of court; it had sworn in three opposition deputies suspended by the court for supposed electoral fraud. But few people are fooled. Luis Almagro, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), called...Continue reading