CARACAS -- (AP) -- The Constituent Assembly controlled by supporters of
 President Hugo Chavez has dissolved Venezuela's Congress and Supreme Court
 and created new bodies to replace them.

 The moves are part of Chavez's plan to shake up a political system racked by
 corruption. However, critics say the changes could concentrate power in the
 hands of Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup and was
 elected president a year ago.

 Congress and the Supreme Court were automatically eliminated after
 Venezuelans approved a new constitution in a national referendum Dec. 15. But
 the Assembly, which drafted the new constitution, officially declared the bodies
 defunct Wednesday.

 It also named a 21-member ``mini-Congress'' to replace the old body until
 elections are held for a new single-house National Assembly, probably in March.
 Most members of the mini-Congress belong to Chavez's leftist Patriotic Pole
 coalition. They include Chavez's brother, Adan.

 The Assembly also appointed a new comptroller, attorney general and members
 of the new Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which replaced the Supreme Court.

 Elections for a new legislature had been expected to take place in February, but
 officials postponed them because of mudslides and floods that killed thousands of
 people in the Caracas area last week.

 Allan Brewer Carias, one of six opposition delegates to the 131-member
 Constituent Assembly, called the Assembly's latest moves ``the most blatant
 mockery of the people's desire for political change.''

 He said the appointments contradicted the new constitution's stated goal of
 making Venezuela's democracy more participatory and wiping out back-room
 political deals.