CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s plan to legislate by decree through the special powers he is requesting from the outgoing National Assembly, totally controlled by his party, was described Saturday as demagogic and opportunistic by members of the opposition and analysts.

Chavez announced Friday that he will ask the National Assembly, or AN, which will be replaced next Jan. 5, to pass the so-called “Enabling Law” that will allow him to dictate “decree-laws” in such areas as the economy and infrastructure, in order to deal with the crisis caused by the rains.

The president did not say which laws he would decree nor for how much time he would ask for these special powers, which have previously been granted by the ruling-party majority on three other occasions: in 1999 for six months, in 2000 for a year, and in 2007 for 18 months.

In the next 165-member National Assembly, the ruling party will have the majority of lawmakers but not, as it has had up to now, the two-thirds majority necessary to approve organic laws or extraordinary measures such as granting special powers to the president.

Chavez said Friday night that he will present a request to the AN in the “next few hours,” so that by Saturday, Dec. 18, he can dictate “the first emergency decree-laws to deal with this great crisis” caused by the rains.

The storms, which have abated in the last few days, left at least 35 people dead, more than 120,000 affected, poor slums destroyed, rural communities flooded, as well as highways blocked and bridges down.

For political analyst Carlos Romero, the fact that Chavez is asking for special powers “in the context of the emergency” of the rains creates doubts about his “true intentions.”

“One asks if Chavez is taking advantage of the situation to radicalize even more the Bolivarian processes” he has led in Venezuela for 11 years, Romero said.

“As if the things waiting for a solution because of the rains will be fixed with special powers. That is demagogy. What is needed is efficiency and work,” opposition member Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda state, one of the 10 declared in emergency because of the rains, said.

The opposition’s Democratic Unity alliance, or MUD, said in a communique signed by lawmaker-elect Alfonso Marquina, that “in the 20 days left in December they’re not going to achieve by means of decree-laws the solutions that the government has promised for years without delivering them.”