CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s Supreme Court chief said Wednesday that the inauguration of President Hugo Chavez can legally be postponed, siding with the government in a heated dispute with the opposition while the ailing leader struggles with complications a month after cancer surgery in Cuba.
Supreme Court President Luisa Estella Morales made the statement after the opposition urged the top court to rule that the government was violating the constitution by putting off the swearing-in for a new term, which had been scheduled for today. Lawmakers voted Tuesday to delay the ceremony, allowing Chavez to take the oath of office at a later date before the Supreme Court.
Morales also said that the Supreme Court has not considered appointing a panel of doctors, as opposition politicians have demanded, to evaluate whether Chavez is fit to remain in office after remaining out of public view since Dec. 11.
While the opposition has not yet filed a formal court challenge to the delayed inauguration, Morales said she was announcing the decision in response to a request for a legal opinion by a woman she didn’t identify. She said the inauguration can be performed before the Supreme Court, at a time and place to be determined.
“We know it’s necessary, and undoubtedly the inauguration is going to be carried out, but at this time we can’t anticipate when,” Morales told reporters at a news conference.
The constitutional debate takes place against a backdrop of complaints that the government isn’t giving complete information about the condition of Chavez, who hasn’t spoken publicly since his fourth cancer-related surgery in Cuba four weeks ago.
“It’s very evident that he isn’t governing, and what they want us to believe is that he’s governing, and they’re lying,” opposition leader Ramon Guillermo Aveledo told the Venezuelan television channel Globovision. He insisted that the National Assembly president should take over temporarily as interim leader and that the Supreme Court should appoint a panel of doctors to determine Chavez’s condition.
Venezuela’s constitution says the oath of office should be taken before lawmakers in the National Assembly on Jan. 10. But the charter adds that if he is unable to be sworn in by the National Assembly, the president may take the oath before the Supreme Court, without explicitly stating a date.
The opposition has argued that the only legal way to postpone the ceremony is for Congress to approve a “temporary absence” for the president, leaving the head of the National Assembly as interim president for 90 days, a period that could be extended for an additional 90 days.
But Morales said that as of now, “there is not even a temporary absence.”
Vice President Nicolas Maduro broke the news that Chavez would not be able to attend the scheduled inauguration in a letter to National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, which he announced he had received Tuesday.
While leaders of both the pro- and anti-Chavez camps say they don’t expect violence to break out today, the government called for the socialist president’s supporters to gather for a demonstration at the presidential palace, and said that some foreign leaders were to visit. Bolivian President Evo Morales and Uruguayan President Jose Mujica have confirmed they will attend.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday also rejected a legal challenge by a lawyer, Otoniel Pautt Andrade, who had argued that it would violate the constitution for Cabello to refuse to assume the presidency provisionally if Chavez were unfit to be sworn in on the set date.
Chavez said before his operation that if he were unable to continue on as president, Maduro should take his place and run in an election to replace him. Speculation that his illness might be entering its final stages grew Tuesday when the proposal for a postponement came in a letter signed by Maduro, not Chavez.
Information for this article was contributed by Vivian Sequera and Ian James of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 01/10/2013