“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
The origins of this infamous phrase can be debated, but it most likely originated with Oscar Benavides, who was president of Peru from 1914 to 1915 and again from 1933 to 1939.
Benavides is often described as someone who clearly understood the hard realities of the Peruvian politics of his era. But nowhere is this cynical principle being more assiduously applied than in the case of modern-day Venezuela.
The decision of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) on Oct. 20 to suspend the presidential recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro has elevated this cynical truism to a whole new level.
The push to remove Maduro from office comes after years of economic decline leading to shortages of basic goods and services, a deteriorating security situation, and an increasingly autocratic and militaristic regime.
Over the past several months, opposition groups have been pushing for a presidential recall referendum, a democratic process that Venezuela’s constitution allows, should they be able to collect enough signatures.
But despite many months of effort by the opposition, the CNE—controlled by its Maduro government-appointed members—ruled last month that if certain conditions were met, a recall referendum would only take place in the first quarter of 2017.
