Without much fuss, the international 'facilitators' are re-entering the picture in Caracas, in a last-ditch attempt to get the national assembly to select a new electoral council (CNE) and thus clear the way for a mandate-revocation referendum. This happened against a background of equivocation, largely originating in the opposition and its friends abroad, which continues to lend plausibility to government claims that a new bid to oust President Hugo Chávez is being prepared.
'Facilitation'. On 25 July the liaison commission between government, opposition and international 'facilitators' drew up an agenda, at the top of which is the appointment of a new CNE. This will be put before the facilitators (the OAS, the Carter Center and the UNDP), possibly in midweek. The agenda was endorsed by the representatives of the government and the opposition.
To add urgency to the proceedings, supreme court president Iván Rincón again served notice that, if the assembly did not act fast, the court would 'fulfil its constitutional duty' and take upon itself the appointment of the CNE.
Actually, this is a two-step process: first the court would issue an ultimatum to the assembly to complete the CNE appointments within 10 days; second, if the assembly does not comply, the court would make its own appointments. Even this would produce only a 'temporary' CNE: it would still be up to the assembly to make the definitive appointments.
Government and opposition have formally agreed that the appointment of a new CNE is 'imperative'. Neither the international organisations nor the government want the matter to be decided by the supreme court instead of the assembly. In the government's case, it is because it does not want to see a precedent set whereby one of the powers of the state supersedes another (even if this is envisaged by the constitution).
'Old' CNE stakes claim. The first attempt to muddy the waters came from three of the current members of the CNE: they said that it was perfectly within their powers to do all that is necessary for the mandate-revocation referendum to get under way -check the validity of signatures endorsing the call, assess the correctness of the question to be put to the electorate, set a date for the vote and supervise the outcome.
This prompted an angry response from Chávez ; perhaps as intended, he announced that he would not accept any referendum conducted by the present CNE.
The 'old' CNE has been left with four members, after the supreme court ordered the removal of the council's president and imposed upon the rest the obligation of unanimity in any decisions. Of the four remaining councillors, three represent the opposition. The fourth represents the government, and under the unanimity rule enjoys a veto.
General speaks. The next round of equivocation hinged on a report that the commander of Venezuela's army, General Jorge Luis García Carneiro, had either 'ruled out' a referendum or tried to influence the outcome by stating that it could not be carried out just yet. With great alacrity the US State Department, through spokesman Philip Reeker, delivered a lecture on the impropriety of an active member of the armed forces speaking out on matters which should be left in the hands of civilians.
What General García had done was to place in context the questions put to him by a TV interviewer, stating the obvious: that with no new CNE appointed, and a 6-7-month lead time for the electoral logistics, the referendum was not likely to take place any time soon. The political component? That 'telling the people there will be a referendum soon is deception.'
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