Venezuelan's Hiperpresidentialism: Democracy Subjugated

The state of democracy in Venezuela combines relatively fair, free, and electoral procedures but with distinct authoritarian features: the lack of autonomy in the Judicial and Legislative powers vis-h-vis an Executive with extraordinary attributions; the development of complex dynamics of centralization of power by the President; the free access to oil revenues by the federal government; the absence of an independent and impartial press and the loss of transparency in the government, among others. Moreover, the abnormalities in the 2009 referendum (that has allowed the emergence of the only presidential system in the region without term limits) suggest that even electoral democracy is being undermined in the country.