An
agreement, brokered by the Holy See, was reached recently between the Socialist
government and the democratic opposition.
It included confidence measures by both sides: the release of four
political prisoners by the government and the congressional opposition’s
abandonment of a political trial of the Socialist dictator. The other terms included a provision for special
elections to replace opposition legislators who were denied seats by the
regime, an acknowledgement of legislature’s autonomy and an agreement on
appointments of replacements to the National Electoral Council—the body that
had rejected the presidential recall referendum I had posted about a few times
recently. On substantive issues, the
agreement includes measures to address medicine and food shortages. Venezuela is amidst a deep economic
crisis and suffers from high crime and corruption. The agreement validates the legitimacy of the
democratic opposition to the Socialist dictatorship.
A new accord
between the government and the Marxist narco-terrorists to end over five
decades of civil war was recently signed.
Unlike the first deal that was rejected in a referendum last month,
which I posted about at the time, the new deal includes trials for guerrillas
accused of war crimes and drug trafficking, which was one of the main concerns
of opponents of the deal. One
controversial provision that did not change is that the rebels may seek
election to the legislature. No seats
are reserved for them and they are not brought into the executive. The conservative government may seek
legislative approval for the deal instead of another referendum.
The far-right
Prime Minister of Hungary declared a few days ago that his country should be an
“illiberal” state. Such a loss of
freedom and representative government would make the former Communist state the
latest example of the global rise of authoritarianism. Venezuela ,
Russia and Turkey are all
examples of states with leaders who were democratically elected but became
dictators.
The Hungarian Government also
recently announced that Hungary
would remain on daylight savings time, which effectively changes their time
zone and thereby eliminates daylight savings time. It cited the usual objections to the
bi-annual changing of the clocks: the inconvenience of the disruption and the
compromises of health and safety. I had
raised such concerns in my post Abolish Daylight Savings Time, from March of
2011, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2011/03/abolish-daylight-savings-time.html.
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