USA/Venezuela - It is difficult to imagine why we would seek “normal” relations with a government that openly supports rogue nations like Iran and Syria, has turned Venezuela into a prime crossroads of drug trafficking in the Americas, protects Colombian terrorists, and runs roughshod over democracy at home

State Department picked a bad time to cozy up to Venezuela

By Jose R. Cardenas

Factions on the rise as ailing Chavez misses swearing-in

More than a decade’s worth of Hugo Chavez gutting his country’s democratic institutions and centralizing power in his person has led to the present turmoil in Venezuela, where just who is the country’s constitutional leader is no longer clear. 

According to the Venezuelan constitution, Jan. 10 was the day Mr. Chavez was to be sworn in for his fourth presidential following his re-election last October. However, he remains sequestered somewhere in a Cuban hospital recovering from reportedly his fourth cancer surgery and hasn’t been seen or heard from since Dec. 8.

Again, according to the Venezuelan constitution, if the president-elect is unable to take the oath of office by Jan. 10, then power is to be transferred to the next-in-line in succession, the president of the National Assembly, currently former military man Diosdado Cabello. 

Yet, this week, the Chavez-packed Supreme Court decided that his swearing-in could be postponed “indefinitely,” meaning that — withChavez nowhere in sight and his medical condition unknown — Venezuela’s nominal leader is Vice President Nicolas Maduro, whom Chavez anointed as his successor last month before disappearing. 

The Venezuelan opposition, however, is demanding that the government follow the constitution.

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