Post by Steve Gardner on Jan 5, 2008 18:51:17 GMT
...in referendum
Source: The Guardian
Rory Carroll in Caracas
Saturday January 5, 2008
The Guardian
President Hugo Chávez has announced a sweeping cabinet shuffle as a result of last month's referendum defeat, which put the brakes on his self-styled socialist revolution in Venezuela.
Chávez said he would make at least 13 changes to his top team, including the vice-president, in an effort to revitalise the government and its ambition to reshape South America's oil giant.
The purge punished ministers who were blamed for failing to muster support for the referendum to extend presidential powers against a backdrop of galloping inflation and creaking public services.
Stung by his first poll defeat in nine years, the president also softened his occasionally incendiary rhetoric and said he wanted to reach out beyond his core support in the slums.
"We are not extremists and we cannot be. We have to look for alliances with the middle classes," Chávez told a state-run TV channel in a Thursday night phone call that revealed the change.
The president stressed however that his radical agenda, which includes verbal onslaughts on the US and closer ties with Cuba, was still on track. "We slipped, that's all. We are going to move forward."
The shuffle's chief casualty was the vice-president, Jorge Rodríguez, a political bruiser loathed by the middle class and blamed by many for bungling last month's mobilisation of government supporters.
Barely a year in the job, Rodríguez, a psychiatrist with a taste for fast cars, was banished from public office and given the post of organiser of the PSUV, the president's newly formed political party.
The new vice-president will be Ramón Carrizales, a housing minister and former infrastructure minister widely seen as a competent if not stellar technocrat.
The information minister, Willan Lara, will make way for Andres Izarra, the youthful president of Telesur, a state-funded TV network riposte to CNN.
The telecommunications minister, Jesse Chacón, will move to head the Popular Participation ministry. He will be replaced by Socorro Hernández, currently president of Venezuela's state-run CANTV telephone company.
Critics say Venezuela's annual cabinet shake-ups have created a sense of revolving-door government, with ministers rising and falling so fast that decision-making becomes inconsistent. The currency is sinking, inflation has surged over 20%, the region's highest, and crime plagues the slums that are home to most Venezuelans.
Source: The Guardian
Rory Carroll in Caracas
Saturday January 5, 2008
The Guardian
President Hugo Chávez has announced a sweeping cabinet shuffle as a result of last month's referendum defeat, which put the brakes on his self-styled socialist revolution in Venezuela.
Chávez said he would make at least 13 changes to his top team, including the vice-president, in an effort to revitalise the government and its ambition to reshape South America's oil giant.
The purge punished ministers who were blamed for failing to muster support for the referendum to extend presidential powers against a backdrop of galloping inflation and creaking public services.
Stung by his first poll defeat in nine years, the president also softened his occasionally incendiary rhetoric and said he wanted to reach out beyond his core support in the slums.
"We are not extremists and we cannot be. We have to look for alliances with the middle classes," Chávez told a state-run TV channel in a Thursday night phone call that revealed the change.
The president stressed however that his radical agenda, which includes verbal onslaughts on the US and closer ties with Cuba, was still on track. "We slipped, that's all. We are going to move forward."
The shuffle's chief casualty was the vice-president, Jorge Rodríguez, a political bruiser loathed by the middle class and blamed by many for bungling last month's mobilisation of government supporters.
Barely a year in the job, Rodríguez, a psychiatrist with a taste for fast cars, was banished from public office and given the post of organiser of the PSUV, the president's newly formed political party.
The new vice-president will be Ramón Carrizales, a housing minister and former infrastructure minister widely seen as a competent if not stellar technocrat.
The information minister, Willan Lara, will make way for Andres Izarra, the youthful president of Telesur, a state-funded TV network riposte to CNN.
The telecommunications minister, Jesse Chacón, will move to head the Popular Participation ministry. He will be replaced by Socorro Hernández, currently president of Venezuela's state-run CANTV telephone company.
Critics say Venezuela's annual cabinet shake-ups have created a sense of revolving-door government, with ministers rising and falling so fast that decision-making becomes inconsistent. The currency is sinking, inflation has surged over 20%, the region's highest, and crime plagues the slums that are home to most Venezuelans.
