ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with changes in institutional dialogue and the process of desinstitutionalization of the democracy in Venezuela after 1999 when Hugo Chávez became president. The analysis focuses on the changes in the oath of office at inauguration ceremonies as an indicator of political change because this is a highly formal and ritualized dialogue that remained unchanged for over 40 years until 1999. A corpus of five oaths of office, three by Hugo Chávez (who governed 14 years) and two by Nicolás Maduro are described in a step by step analysis that examines the interventions of the participants in detail (between the President of Congress and the President-Elect). The analysis shows the progressive changes in the genre itself, which becomes a hybrid text that contains features of political manifesto, political meeting with traces of the original text, and unveils the transition from a representative democracy to a radical authoritarian socialism characterized by personalism and religious cult to the leader.
