Venezuelan parliament postpones president's oath

Parliament voted on 8 December to allow President Hugo Chávez Frías to formally take office before the Supreme Court after the official date of 10 January, given his physical incapacity to attend a ceremony in Venezuela for now. The Speaker of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello Rondón told parliament that the 10 January date was not as opposition members alleged "immovable" and there were precedents for a president's late inauguration. The President he said now had "all the time he needs to recover and return to Venezuela" once cured of his illness, El Universal reported. He said addressing the opposition coalition that the government was functioning and the socialist regime united, "only the opposition is not functioning...the day something happens, [the vice-president] Nicolás [Maduro] and I will be here together. I don't know if you will all be together." Cabello was sworn in as Speaker on 5 January for 2012-13; he expressed satisfaction at the 8 January session that no opposition legislators had been included in the parliamentary presidium, as "there would surely have been a coup." A lawyer and constitutional specialist separately told Globovisión, a broadcaster critical of the regime, that he considered the vote "contrary to the constitution" and inapplicable beyond 10 January when the present constitutional period ended. José Vicente Haro said the acting president Nicolás Maduro and ministers should step down on 10 January, after which date they could be no more than a de facto government, Globovisión reported. Venezuela's Prosecutor-General Luisa Ortega Díaz was however cited as saying that day that a new constitutional period was not to be confused with a presidential mandate. She said "the mandate is one thing and the constitutional period another," and "the President can thus not take office on 10 January," Globovisión reported. She said parliament should however convene that day to start the new constitutional period. Hugo Chávez was elected to a new presidential term on 7 October. Ortega said that in spite of his resurgent illness and temporary absence, there had been no "power vacuum" in Venezuela as the opposition alleged.