Under the gaze of rifle-toting soldiers, thousands of Venezuelans signed petitions demanding recall votes for 38 lawmakers. Results were expected within a month.
The four-day sign-up, a bid to strengthen Chavez's hold on Congress, came as his opponents gear up for their own petition drive — also a recall campaign — set to start next Friday.
The Organization of American States views a presidential recall referendum as a peaceful way to resolve a conflict threatening the stability of one of the world's largest oil producers. Any vote on Chavez's term, which runs to 2007, would likely occur next year.
Chavez has vowed to defeat the effort, just as he survived a coup in 2002 and a punishing general strike earlier this year. In recent months he has spent millions of dollars on programs designed to feed, house and educate Venezuela's majority poor.
"We have to kick out those obstructing the revolution," said Diana Trejo, an unemployed woman who signed Chavez's petition Friday. "All of this (government spending) benefits the poor who always have been excluded in this country."
A former army paratrooper, Chavez led a failed coup in 1992, was imprisoned for two years and was elected president in 1998 on an anti-corruption platform. He ushered in a new constitution, won a new six-year term and seized control of Congress in subsequent elections.
Since then, more than a dozen lawmakers have abandoned the Chavez camp to protest his inability to fight crime or create jobs. Many cite fears he wants to impose a Cuban-style dictatorship in this South American nation. Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement now has a single-digit majority in Congress. ***
The economist affirmed that this system, which has been applied with success in many western nations, can not take hold in Latin America despite the fact that the majority of countries in the region fulfill all of the measures required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
De Soto said that to establish a market economy in Peru, it is not necessary to have natural resources, innovation, nor education, although the latter is important. “What we need is an efficient reform of the State that would include the informal business sector, who unlike the big investors do not have the support they need. You have to remember that 80% of Peruvians do not have access to the instruments of a market economy and because of that do not support it, nor are they even interested in preserving it, he said.
Nevertheless, the economist pointed out that the main problem for Peru is not economic, but legal, and that for this reason the creation of a legal structure that will permit the development of a market economy is absolutely necessary. A president who lacks leadership can not carry out a reform of the State. He must lead, be committed, and be convinced of the reforms, to create entrepreneurial structures adequate to the reality of the country, to establish law so that all Peruvians can operate on a larger scale, and establish property titles in order to create capital.
With respect to the statements by the prime minister Beatriz Merino, who said a massive layoff of workers was not necessary in order to reform the State, De Soto said that Merino ought to explain how to achieve it and that it would be interesting to know how they planned to implement the reforms and to what purpose.
The economist was against taxing banking transactions, as that would increase costs and increase the informal economy [end]
Under the gaze of rifle-toting soldiers, Chavez's Backers Stage Petition Drive