Hugo Chavez is an interesting leader to say the least. I just hope that the lack of opposition isn't indicative of something more ominous...
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's National Assembly, filled entirely with allies of President Hugo Chavez, opened debate Thursday on a measure to grant the leftist leader sweeping powers -- a key moment in Chavez's drive to turn Venezuela into a socialist state.
Lawmakers are expected to approve quickly Chavez's request for the power to enact laws by decree for a period of 1 1/2 years -- what the fiery leader known for his criticism of Washington called the "mother law of revolutionary laws."
"This process is unstoppable," lawmaker Juan Montenegro Nunez told the National Assembly during the first discussion on the proposal Thursday morning. "This process is a historic necessity."
but, when he says and does things like capping government salaries that feeling of foreboding disappears...
Among various new laws, Chavez promised to push through a law capping government salaries and urged some public employees to volunteer to have their pay cut before then -- or step down.
"We're going to impose a cap because really it seems an exaggeration and an obscenity to me that a person, for all that he may work, earns 20 million bolivares [$9,300] a month," he said, calling such salaries "customs of a capitalist, bourgeois state" that must be destroyed.
Source: Allies expected to grant Chavez expanded powers - CNN.com
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