CARACAS, Venezuela, Mar 16, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened governors who resist a new law that allows the executive branch to assume power previously given to the regions.
Chavez said he will arrest governors who resist the law, outlined in the Organic Law on Decentralization, El Universal reported Monday.
He has already ordered military officials to take over the key seaports of Puerto Cabello, Porlamar and Maracaibo because the governor there, Henrique Salas Feo, has said he will flout the new law.
"You would better have an army, buddy, because the Navy will go there. I do not know what you are going to do; you will go to jail, then. No authority here -- a mayor, governor, or whatever -- may oppose the Constitution and the Venezuelan law, otherwise he will be arrested," Chavez said.
El Universal noted that similar warnings were given to the governors in Zulia and Nueva Esparta.
"We will recover the ports and airports throughout Venezuela. No matter who opposes these measures, this is the Venezuelan law," Chavez said. "These are strategic facilities and belong to all the Venezuelan people, not to a regional warlord or to the mafias."
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