None of the Mercosur partners are challenging the basic political practices of authoritarian populism implanted in Venezuela. On the contrary, they are adopting methods that subvert the checks and balances of a republican division of power.

After Chavez, Authoritarianism Still 

Threatens Latin America

by Juan de Onis

While Venezuela remains conflicted in post-election political violence, the followers of the late President Hugo Chávez continue to apply the playbook of authoritarian populism throughout Latin America in their pursuit of more power. This political perversion is going to continue to be a threat to genuine constitutional democracy in Latin America until new electoral majorities develop around genuine republican leaders. It will not be easy because Latin America’s new middle class voters have not yet settled on what kind of societies they want in the 21st century.

... none of the Mercosur partners are challenging the basic political practices of authoritarian populism implanted in Venezuela. On the contrary, they are adopting methods that subvert the checks and balances of a republican division of power. In Argentina, the radical Peronists now in power under Kirchner pushed a judiciary reform through Congress last week that seeks to end any independent judiciary in the country. The main objective of this maneuver is to overcome rejection in the Supreme Court of a constitutional reform that would allow Kirchner to run for a third term, now banned. Under the judicial reform approved by the Peronist majorities, the executive could pack the courts with new appointees considered favorable to the government. Judges now appointed by a process of judicial selection would be elected by popular vote. The federal government could override court injunctions by a vote of Congress. Peronists present this proposed change as a “democratization” of the current legal system, which has been holding Kirchner in check in her dispute with privately owned newspapers, also a target of attacks in Venezuela and Ecuador.

Emasculation of the judicial system is one of the first steps imposed when populist regimes seek to remove obstacles to unlimited power and permanent control of elected offices. This happened in Venezuela, early in the Chávez regime, and Bolivia and Ecuador have followed the same practice. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has already been elected to a second term, and President Evo Morales announced last week that he would be running for a third consecutive term in Bolivian elections next year if the Supreme Court validates a constitutional reform opening the way to ruling in perpetuity. Morales said he had to continue as president to keep Bolivia from falling into the hands of “yanqui imperialism” and he backed this up by expelling the United States Aid Agency (USAID) from the country. .................
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