October 10, 2012

Venezuela must stop being a nation so amenable to Goliaths

Sir, I refer to Moisés Naím’s“Goliath wins, but Venezuela is at a turning point”, October 10. 

In Venezuela, the central government, meaning the president, receives and decides now over 97 percent of all the nations export revenues. Clearly that makes a mockery out of any democracy, and there is no constitution able to generate the checks and balances that could reign in an oil autocrat willing to exercise his powers to the fullest extent. 

In this respect I have always wondered why intelligent fellow Venezuelan citizens like Moises Naím, spend so much efforts trying to change who is to be the democratically elect oil autocrat and basically none on trying to change the system so that we could have a regular president, for instance by promoting oil revenue sharing among all Venezuelan citizens. 

Could it be that for all the Davids the possibility of becoming a Goliath, or one of his ministers, is something too tempting to abandon?