opinion

Mora Díaz was immediately responding to opposition accusations that the court ruling had set a legal precedent against the right to strike. "The judge properly found that the crime of rebellion was committed, based on allegations and evidence in the file... this is clearly different from any strike, which is a constitutional right which nevertheless must be exercised under the limits set out in the 1999 constitution and the laws."

"A strike which has as its aim to achieve labor vindications is very much different from a strike which is insurrectionist and solely aimed at overthrowing a democratically elected government."

Mora Díaz says it is not necessary to defend the Venezuelan judiciary's code of impartiality and added that there were no political implications in the ruling against Ortega: "the judiciary as an institution would never support any such move."

Ortega has right of appeal through higher courts, including the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, opposition Accion Democratica congressman, Pedro Pablo Alcantara --- a vocal critic of President Hugo Chávez and his government --- says he fears that the government is "laying the foundation for social unrest."

In the National Assembly he said "what the government, including the president, governors, mayors and ministers, has done in terms of using public funds clearly shows that it is prepared to overstep the Constitution and use public money for party political purposes --- in doing so it is creating conditions for a revolt." Alcantara also claims that "a number of actions taken by the government to make political parties illegal" although opposition parties had, in fact, disenfranchised themselves in a last-minute boycott of the December 4 parliamentary elections in which Chávez-faithful parties won an overwhelming democratic majority.

Alcantara was doubtless referring to a recent remark by Executive Vice President José Vicente Rangel who said that the National Elections Council (CNE) would be advising various political actors that their refusal to participate in the democratic electoral process had resulted in their own illegitimacy and that they must therefore be in compliance with lengthy re-registration formalities before they can be reconstituted as political parties ahead of presidential elections in December 2006.