ABSTRACT
In Venezuela, demand for a new constitution had been evident long before Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency. The election of the Assemblea Constituyente (AC) was marked by a high turnout in a country in which a majority of population identifies itself as indigenous and 36 nationalities co-exist. In Venezuela and Ecuador, the legal dilemma at the core of the constitution-making process was that convening an AC was not regulated by the constitutions in force at that time. The Constituent Assembly began its sessions with a heated debate on general rules and, in particular, on the majority required for approving the new constitution. The new constitution defines the state as a Unitary Social State of Plurinational, Community-Based Law. In the short term the Punto Fijo Pact helped establish democracy, but in long term turned electoral politics into little more than a farce that gave a fig-leaf of legitimacy to a system in which power was effectively divided up between principal parties.
