En: Recibido por email
2013-01-09 20:07:06.728 GMT
By Joshua Goodman and Randall Woods
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- What does a constitutional showdown
in Venezuela over ailing President Hugo Chavez’s month-long
absence have in common with an obscure 19th century U.S. vice
president? Cuba, of course.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court cited William R. King’s delayed
swearing in as the 13th vice president of the U.S. in a ruling
today backing the government’s position that Chavez’s
inauguration for a new term, scheduled to take place tomorrow,
can be postponed until he recovers from cancer surgery in Cuba.
King was elected on the Democratic ticket with Franklin
Pierce in 1852 and took the oath of office on March 24, 1853 --
20 days after the new government came to power -- while being
treated in Cuba for tuberculosis. Thanks to an act of Congress
he was legally vice president for those three weeks before he
swore in. The parallels with Chavez are thin, as King’s delayed
inauguration on foreign soil was a tribute to a dying man with
little power, said U.S. presidential historian Anthony Bergen.
“The Venezuelans are grasping for whatever straws they can
find,” Bergen, author of the book “Tributes and Trash Talk:
What Our Presidents Said About Each Other,” said by phone from
St. Louis. “Whatever happens with Chavez’s illness will really
affect that country whereas King wasn’t replaced until the next
term.”
Supreme Court Statement
Supreme Court President Luisa Estella Morales cited the
case of King -- the highest-serving politician from Alabama in
American history -- along with other international precedents to
justify the court’s interpretation that the inauguration is
just a formality. The constitution allows Chavez to remain in
power even without being sworn in tomorrow for his third,
six-year term, she said..
“In comparative law there have been many cases in which
the swearing in of the president has been stripped of the
ceremony that is sometimes given in these cases,” she said in a
press conference today in Caracas.
Venezuela’s opposition insists that Chavez’s current term
ends Jan. 10, and that his failure to show up for tomorrow’s
inauguration means National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello
must take power on an interim basis until the socialist leader
recovers or an election is held.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court hasn’t said where, when or how
Chavez can be sworn in. Otto Reich, a former U.S. Ambassador to
Caracas before Chavez took power in 1999, said that the
government may try to send a Supreme Court delegation to Cuba to
swear in Chavez in his hospital room, according to an interview
with the Newsmax.TV website yesterday.
The finale to King’s unusual inauguration on foreign soil
may not be one that Chavez supporters wish to contemplate: three
weeks after being sworn in and returning to the U.S., he was
dead
No comments:
Post a Comment