Businessman Named Interim President After Chavez Is Ousted

By Jason Webb
Reuters
 

CARACAS, Venezuela - Military officers forced fiery populist Hugo Chavez out as Venezuelan president in a coup Friday,
installing a mild-mannered business executive who had helped lead opposition to his populist pro-Cuba policies as interim
president.

The armed forces said in the early hours of Friday the left-wing leader, who rose to power with support from Venezuela's poor,
had resigned at their request as president of the world's fourth-biggest oil exporting nation.

The move came after gunmen believed to be Chavez supporters opened fire on a massive demonstration by unarmed
anti-government protesters in Caracas Thursday, killing 15 people. The coup culminated months of rising discontent with
Chavez' government among the military, business leaders, news media and even the Roman Catholic church.

The interim government led by Pedro Carmona, head of business lobby Fedecamaras, accused Chavez of constitutional abuses
and said there would be presidential elections within a year. Carmona will not stand.

All members of the Supreme Court and the National Assembly – both dominated by Chavez supporters – were also fired, and
congressional elections will be held by December.

Soldiers arrested Chavez, a paratrooper turned populist politician, hours before dawn and took him to the Fuerte Tiuna military
base. Light tanks took positions around the city.

Wearing his trademark red beret and military uniform, the burly Chavez was escorted from the presidential palace. It was just a
little over 10 years since Chavez's own attempt at a military coup had failed but brought the then little-known army officer to
prominence.

As he left the palace, he did not speak. A little later, army Gen. Efrain Vasquez said that he was taking over as head of the
armed forces and that Carmona was the new president.

                     The armed forces said they had acted to defend civilians and that their overthrow of Chavez, who
                     had been due to finish his term in 2006, was not a coup.

                     "It wasn't a coup. It wasn't insubordination. It was an act of solidarity with the Venezuelan people,"
                     Vasquez said.

                     After swearing in as president Friday evening, Carmona told cheering supporters that what he called
                     Chavez' "authoritarian style" was now firmly in the past.

                     "I make a sincere call for calm in the whole country, for solidarity with the transition government,"
                     said the balding, 61-year-old Carmona, whose low-key, ponderous manner is worlds away from
                     that of the rambunctious Chavez.

                     Jubilant opponents of Chavez drove through the chaotic tropical capital, honking horns, waving
Venezuelan flags and shouting Carmona's name.

The army said it had refused the humbled leader's request to be allowed to fly into exile in communist Cuba.

Supporters of the colorful Chavez – the 47-year-old son of poor country school teachers whose fiery rhetoric and friendship
with Cuba's Fidel Castro infuriated Venezuela's upper classes and powerful news media – cried foul.

Chief Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez, a close Chavez ally, said there was no proof that the president – who still had about 35
percent support in the last opinion poll – had quit.

"President Chavez continues to be the president of the republic of Venezuela," he told reporters just a few hours before being
fired by the interim government.

The interim government said that a new Congress would be elected by December with powers to reform the constitution.

Latin American nations condemned Chavez' military overthrow, which recalls dark memories in a region long largely dominated
by military governments.

But Washington was clearly pleased to see the back of Chavez, whose anti-U.S. rhetoric was a constant irritation, and U.S.
officials said they did not consider his overthrow to be a coup. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the Chavez
government had triggered its own downfall by directing its supporters to fire on the protest.

Castro's Cuba said Venezuela had suffered a "counter-revolutionary" plot by the "subversive" rich.

International oil prices tumbled on news of Chavez's political demise, as markets rejoiced in the prospect of a new government
less likely to comply with OPEC production quotas.

Rumors of Chavez' imminent fall had intensified over the past year as he sniped at the upper classes, the Roman Catholic
Church and the news media – which fought back with an unrelenting campaign of aggressive reporting.

First elected with a landslide 56 percent of the vote in 1998, Chavez's folksy rhetoric and thunderous condemnations of the
country's notoriously corrupt politicians generated huge enthusiasm among the millions of poor Venezuelans.

He used his massive mandate to abolish Congress, replacing it with a new National Assembly which granted him
unprecedented powers, prompting his opposition foes to accuse him of leading Venezuela down the road to Cuban-style
dictatorship.

He said his reforms were a "Bolivarian revolution" – named after South America's 19th century independence hero Simon
Bolivar – and provoked ridicule among the upper classes by renaming the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The interim government has already changed the name back to the Republic of Venezuela.

But it was Venezuela's powerful oil workers who brought Chavez down. The union at state-owned giant PDVSA went on
strike Tuesday in protest at the president's dismissal of the company's board of directors.

Venezuela's squabbling array of opposition movements congealed around the oil protest, and tens of thousands of people
marched on Chavez's Miraflores presidential palace Thursday. Rooftop gunmen, in civilian dress, opened fire, killing 15 and
injuring more than 150 others.

As police hunted for the gunmen Friday, labor and business leaders vowed to work to restore normality.

Although the streets of Caracas were generally quiet, police and security officers raided several neighborhoods of the city,
searching for the Chavez supporters who were suspected of being involved in Thursday's shootings.

Chavez's former Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez, was tracked down in a Caracas apartment building and hustled away in
handcuffs as a furious mob pummeled him with punches.

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