Security & Strategic Review November 2007 (ISSN 1741-4202)

VENEZUELA | Top military ally turns on Chávez . On 5 November, retired General Raúl Isaí­as Baduel, former defence minister and previously army commander, called a press conference to attack President Hugo Chávez 's constitutional reform proposals. 'Should the constitutional reform be approved,' Baduel said, 'in practice a coup d'etat would be consummated [...] Any constitution that deregulates and removes constraints on power should be viewed with suspicion.' He added that Chávez 's reform proposals went beyond mere amendments to devise 'a transformation of the state', and therefore could only be approved by a constituent assembly, not by the legislature.

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