Making socialism official

摘要

The Catholic church calls it "morally unacceptable". Many lawyers and human-rights organisations say it violates fundamental freedoms. Even some of the government's allies have spoken of "constitutional fraud". But none of this looks likely to hinder Hugo Chavez's sweeping reform of Venezuela's constitution. The National Assembly was set to approve the changes on November 2nd for submission to a referendum a month later. Mr Chavez says that the reform, which follows his victory in a presidential election last December, is imperative to entrench his "revolution". As unveiled by him in August, the reform affected fewer than a tenth of the 350 articles in the 1999 constitution (which the president himself inspired). But the assembly has added a further 36 articles.