Weekly Report - 31 October 2013 (WR-13-43)

While President Nicolás Maduro patiently waits for the elusive 99^th deputy in the national assembly to win approval for an enabling act allowing him to rule by decree to combat corruption, he has been getting into practice by issuing a decree creating a new deputy ministry for the supreme social happiness of the people in the Bolivarian Revolution. Its remit will be coordinating the social missions steadily introduced under Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) since 2003.