I was encouraged this afternoon when I read that the National Assembly was considering naming the Electoral Board. Encouraged because I think the Venezuelan Supreme Court step over the bounds in naming gain the new members of the Electoral Board (CNE). Two years ago, the Supreme Court acted due to the omission of the National Assembly in naming the Board. But how can anyone argue omission this time around when the Assembly had never tried until today to name the new members of that Board?
But it gets even worse. The Granda case has overshadowed the details of what has been done to this battered democracy by the Supreme Court. As way of background, there were two vacancies in the Board, that of the President of the CNE, the infamous Francisco Carrasquero, who is now part or the country’s highest Court. The second vacancy was that of principal member Ezequiel Zamora, who resigned over the way the recall vote was handled.
But the remarkable thing is that the Chavez controlled Court, decided to name the replacements to these vacancies and lo and behold, removed two of the alternate members of the Board arguing that they had political affiliations! If that argument were used, they could have never named Jorge Rodriguez as President, a man who defended the current Government at each step and instance on the way to the recall referendum and who on that fateful night of the vote cont did not allow neither the international observers nor the members of the CNE who were not pro-Chávez to have access to the counting of the votes. In fact, under that criteria not ONE of the mbers of the Board of the CNE, principals or alternates would have remained in the Board.
In fact, when the Court named the Electoral Board in August 2003, its President suggested that it was a balanced Board, with two pro-Chavez Directors and two anti-Chavez Directors and an impartial (ha!) President to maintain equilibrium. Well, this time around the Court did not even try to maintain appearances naming two obviously pro-Chavez members who now hold a despicable four to one majority to guarantee that electoral results fit the expectations of the Government.
Thus, it seemed very encouraging this morning when a discussion began to have the Assembly assume its democratic responsibility, engage in democratic debate, name a Board that would be agreeable to all parts and remove the perversion that the current CNE represents.
But it was not to be. In that classic Stalinist fashion that they have accustomed us to, the Chavez-led majority in the National Assembly simply refused even to consider the issue, not only allowing the Court to overstep its bounds, but giving up its Constitutional independence and mandate. Thus, the Chavista Deputies accept and admit their servile role in this Government, relegating their power to the wishes of the autocrat and refusing to allow a democratic exchange. It is once again a sad day for democracy in Venezuela, but we seemed to have had too many of those sad days in the last year anyway.
The Devil's Excrement 
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