Venezuelan lawmakers on Friday approved an election law to redraw voting districts, a step that President Hugo Chavez’s opponents say will give his party a big advantage in next year’s congressional vote.
Ruling party lawmaker Iroshima Bravo downplayed the opposition’s concerns that voting district boundaries could be redrawn to favor the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
“If they have the support of the people, they have nothing to fear,” she said, adding that the legislation was needed because populations had increased or decreased in many municipalities and voting districts should reflect these changes.
PHOTO: AP
The bill easily passed the National Assembly, which is dominated by Chavez allies.
The law authorizes the National Election Council to redraw the boundaries ahead of the election. Four of the council’s five members are widely perceived as pro-Chavez.
Tomas Sanchez, one of a dozen lawmakers who voted against the measure, said he expected the body to “change the district lines, mixing up places where the opposition is stronger with places where the PSUV usually wins, and thereby weaken the opposition.”
The law also changes Venezuela’s proportional representation system in a way that will likely hurt smaller parties.
Under the existing system, 60 percent of lawmakers are elected in single-seat districts, while the remaining 40 percent are elected from a list of candidates chosen by the party.
Currently, if 10 lawmakers are to be elected in a state and one party receives 60 percent of the vote, another 30 percent and a third party 10 percent, then the party that received 60 percent would have six lawmakers elected to the assembly, the runner-up would have three and the minority party would have one.
Under the complex new regulations, seats that previously would have been assigned to minority parties will now be handed over to the top finishers — leaving smaller political groups with little or no representation.
Critics say the law will hurt the coalition of small opposition parties that would challenge Chavez in next year’s congressional polls.
Chavez foes expect to make a strong showing after the opposition made significant gains in November’s gubernatorial and mayoral elections, winning key posts in Caracas and Maracaibo, the country’s second-largest city.
The Venezuelan elections watchdog group Sumate called the law unconstitutional, saying it violates the proportional-representation system outlined in the charter.
“Sumate reminds legislators that they represent the country — not a political tendency,” the group said in a statement.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS