(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[7. December 2007] It does not matter if a leader stands to the right or left if the leader is a dictator. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in no way fulfills the criteria to be called a dictator today, but unfortunately he has shown trends in this direction. The president of the big project "Socialism for the 21. century "has carried out important social reforms in his home country and his nationalization of oil resources is also similar to the Norwegian model. But the development of the leader today is daunting.
The referendum last weekend was to further expand the president's power. With victory, the president would have direct control over the central bank and greater power over the military. He wanted to extend the presidential term and remove the restrictions on how many times the president can be re-elected. Chavez himself has said he wants to sit as president until he is 95. The amendments to the Constitution also include a number of social benefits, such as local direct democracy, expanded pension rights and a six-hour working day. Unfortunately, this appears to be a classic manifestation of what Jan Petersen has called "petropopulism", by Morgenbladet in 2005 defined as "a political point of view motivated by the desire to win popular support requires increased use of oil money".
On Wednesday this week, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre wrote in Dagbladet that Norway has deliberately sought not to politicize our exports of oil and gas. In reality, Norway has had no other option. Cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom is so close that it would be impossible for Norway, for example, to join Opec. But on the same day, the Foreign Minister's State Secretary Raymond Johansen was on a trip with Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister. The dilemmas become clear when the official Norway enters into explicit cooperation with Azerbaijan, after StatoilHydro has major economic interests in the country and while Azerbaijan is one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. Under Chavez, Venezuela has expanded petropopulism to include aid to Western countries, such as Venezuela's subsidizing London buses. The European left has applauded many of Chavez's previous elections. The warning lights should now flash.
