President Chavez of Venezuela has unveiled his blueprint for land reforms in his country that will take away land ownership from private individuals and vest it with the centralized government at Caracas.
The president’s second and the last term, according to the constitution, of office ends in 2010. As per the Venezuelan constitution a president can only be re-elected to a single consecutive term.
Venezuela has a virtually two-party democracy and the president of the federal republic is elected by vote, with direct and universal suffrage.
Chavez said on Sunday that his government was ‘advancing quickly’ with a concept of ’social, or collective, property.’
Clearly, following in the footsteps of the authoritarian rulers of the erstwhile Soviet Union and other Socialist countries elsewhere in the world that continue to follow the Soviet model with local variations, Chavez is also trying to establish an authoritarian government in Venezuela. His political ideologies have increasingly moved towards a Cuban-style communism.
Land reform in Venezuela, however, is not new. The reforms began five years ago under Chavez’s supervision. Officials have already redistributed over 4.6 million acres of land that had been classified as unproductive or lacked property documents dating back to 1847, as claimed by the government.
Remarkably, There were no serious opposition to the take over and redistribution of lands.The lands were taken over by the National Guards before distribution to peasant farmers.
The changes now proposed by the president can be implemented only if they are made part of the constitution which is already slated to be rewritten.
Government advisers who are preparing a blueprint for pending constitutional reforms have roughly defined the collective property as state-owned assets such as farms that are managed by workers.
Alfonzo Marquina, the leader of the opposition, said ‘If Mr. Chavez really wants to help Venezuela’s poor farmers, he must offer them technical assistance and sufficient financing because land doesn’t become productive without investment.’
While Chavez admires leaders like Fidel Castro of Cuba and president Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, it remains to be seen whether his far reaching reforms will be of any economic benefit to Venezuela.
