This post is a reference to all steps the Chavez regime is taking towards dictatorship.
Please, if you know of more events, send them over. I specially want to document how Chavez and his people are illegally taking over the powers from the regions and doing everything to prevent the opposition from doing its work.
NOVEMBER 2008
23.11.2008
- Regional elections take place. Venezuelan opposition gets around 45% of the votes. It gets the government of following main regions:
- Caracas Capital municipality,
- Carabobo state,
- Miranda state,
- Nueva Esparta state,
- Táchira state,
- Zulia state
11.2008
- Chávez insults the opposition: "fascists, Yankee-puppets". He declares the opposition is preparing a coup. He declares he will sweep them away.
11.2008
- Avila TV, TV channel of Caracas municipality, is transferred by Chavez decree to the national government so that the newly elected opposition can not manage it.
Soviet-style wall on state Avila TV
DECEMBER 2008
5.12.2008
2009
FEBRUARY 2009
5.2.2009
- Chavista thugs attack building of newly elected mayor of Caracas and occupy it.
3.3.2009
- Pro-Chavez groups, lead by deputy Cruz Ortiz and by Cruz Mora, violently take over the House of Culture of Guarenas, Miranda.
- Chavez government takes control of all airports and ports, until then controlled by the governors. La Nacion writes more on that here. With that a lot of taxes are also gone from elected authorities that are in the opposition.
30.4.2009
- Venezuelan National Assembly passes a Capital District Law transfering most functions, funding, and personnel from Caracas' municipality (where Antonio Ledezma was elected mayor) to the control of Jacqueline Farias, appointed by Chavez
MAY 2009
5.5.2009
- Pro-Chavez groups tries by error to occupy the Corporación Metropolitana de Seguridad thinking it is the Metropolitan Institute of the Youth (part of Caracas's institutions they wanted to take away from elected mayor Ledezma)
- The national government takes away schools from elected mayor of Caracas to put them under the control of Jacqueline Farías.
- Pro-Chavez fans try to attack the House of Acción Democrática (AD) party in Anaco when AD's general secretary was on visit there. Notice than the pro-Chavez groups explains here what "really happened" without realizing in any country with rule of law that "really" would be equally condemnable.
15.6.2009
- Chavista thugs attack people from Primero Justicia in front of police station and kill a young man.
18.6.2009
- Pro-Chavez mayor attacks building of governor of Miranda and, among other things, paints swastikas. Police does nothing.
19.6.2009
- National Assembly transfers election of state comptrollers to pro-Chavez national comptroller. They had been elected by each state until now.
He will elect all comptrollers in every state now
19.6.2009
- Municipality of the Metropolitan area (Caracas) denounces the authorities of the newly formed Capital district does not send them the financial resources they should get according to the constitution.
- Pro-Chavez mayor gets walls of the region painted with slogans against Globovisión, the last Chavez-critical TV channel (open air only in Caracas and Valencia, accessible by cable for 30%
"Globovision does not inform, it makes sick. Turn off the disease"
JULY 2009
3.7.2009
- Pro-Chavez thugs attack in daylight the offices of newspapers El Notitarde and El Carabobeno in Puerto Cabello and paint slogans such as "information criminals". The march is organized by officialist mayor Rafael Lavaca.
- Antonio Ledezma, elected mayor of Caracas, begins a hunger strike at the OAS embassy in Caracas to call the attention about the state of democracy in Venezuela.
- Chávez tells his Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela to stand together to avoid that the opposition wins the majority in congress in 2010 as this would lead to "a coup as in Honduras".
5.7.2009
- Military of Táchira takes over main square of the state capital and prevents the elected governor from celebrating there the 5th of July, Independence Day, as governors used to do. The military chef says he can do that because "he is the military governor".
- The president of Venezuela's Supreme Court, Luisa Estela Morales, threatens a journalist who was asking difficult questions and says the journalist could end up like another journalist who cannot report on the Supreme Court since 2007 for being difficult.
15.7.2009
- Energy minister Rafael Ramírez, a man who has a base salary that is over 60 times the minimum wage, declares he won't discuss with unions that are "enemies of Chavez". He says: "I am not going to sit down to talk to foes of the revolution. There is no point in having a new Venezuelan national oil company if it is a nest of squalid ones (referring to opposition)". He adds: "the oligarchy should be afraid of us as we hate the oligarchy". Finally he said PDVSA workers should constitute socialist committees, otherwise "they will be considered suspect of conspiring with the government".
15.7.2009
- The National Guard troop attacks a police centre of the Miranda state (in the town of Curiepe) and throws out the police managed by the opposition governor.
- Venezuelan judge declares she was forced to sign an order against Globovisión owner Zuloaga.
- Military in Táchira threaten to take over several kindergartens.
- Military in Miranda threaten to take over several police stations under control of the Miranda governor, as they did before in Curiepe.
- Judge who declared that she forced to send order against Globovisión order is sacked.
- Chavez "suggests" again to the National Assembly to give him special powers in order to "speed up the revolution" and "eliminate all the antirevolutionary laws".
- Chavez declares that when he sees that the border opposition-ruled states of Táchira and Zulia try to "destabilize" the country, "we have to go after them and to reduce the opposition through laws".
AUGUST 2009
2.8.2009
- New gerrymandering law gets approved.
OCTOBER 2009
3.10.2009
- The national government sacks two teachers for accepting from opposition leader Ledezma a donation of books and tools for children.
- The military prevents medical assistance from the Tachira lottery from arriving to a Barinas city. The reason: the lottery belongs to a state where the opposition was elected.
- Hugo approves new budget for 2010 reducing resources allocated for all kinds of ministries, for the police, for education and specially the region, but increasing 638% the resources allocated to himself.
- Several of the new directors of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) turn out to be hard-core PSUV members. People belonging to parties are not allowed to be part of Venezuela's Electoral commitee...unless they belong to the PSUV.
2010
JANUARY 2010
- The CNE announces changes to the electoral districts in the most populated states. The gerrymandering that was already present since 2000 becomes much worse. Now, for instance, if people in Carabobo voted the same as they did in 2008, 54% for the opposition, this opposition would get 1 out of 7 votes against 4 out of 3 if the government hadn't changed the rules again.
- Ministry of Interior of Cuba, Valdés, is brought to Venezuela to work "as an expert in electricity, even if he is rather expert in repression.
23.3.2010
- Ex governor Oswaldo Álvarez Paz was detained for expressing his opinion about Chávez's regime.
APRIL 2010
13.4.2010
- Chávez declares, between insults, that "if they kill me, sweep away with the bourgeoisie."
21.5.2010
- Rocío San Miguel, NGO representative who denounced the inconstitutional involvement of active military in the PSUV, is threatened by goons.
- The CNE rejects the petition to accept observers from the European Union and the OAS.
- Nurses were detained for one day for a peaceful protest they made about their working conditions and the lack of resources of the maternity hospital.
- The national police (CICPC) takes away 30 motorbikes from the opposition-managed Alcaldía Metropolitana claiming the bikes were "irregular". Elected major Ledezma says all papers are in order.
- The outgoing pro-Chávez assembly approves an unconstitutional law that forbids deputies to vote according to their conscience and forces them to vote according to what their party says.