CARACAS, Venezuela — Riot police used tear gas Wednesday to block hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the latest moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power. The demonstrators said a blacklist of opposition candidates and a series of socialist decrees are destroying what’s left of their democracy.
Though the protest of about 1,000 people chanting “freedom!” was small compared with past marches, there is a growing public outcry over the sidelining of key government opponents ahead of state and local elections in November.
Chavez opponents also are outraged by 26 laws the president just decreed, some of them mirroring the socialist measures voters rejected in a December referendum.
“We said in the referendum that we didn’t want that, and now he’s put it in the decrees,” said protester Josefina Bravo, a 59-year-old who wore a sticker reading “No means no” on her baseball cap. “That’s the problem we have: All the powers are concentrated in the president.”
One decree establishes a civilian militia that critics warn could emulate the citizen groups that control community life in Cuba. Another gives Chavez the ability to designate regional authorities who critics say could undermine the power of locally elected officials.
Other decrees empower Chavez to expropriate goods from private businesses and increase state control over food.
The decrees came down just as the Chavez-aligned Supreme Court upheld a decision by Venezuela’s top anti-corruption official to bar 272 mostly opposition-aligned candidates from running.
