Even Sanz has very limited powers. It seems that despite the existence of a so called "elected democratic government" those elected officials can do little more than meet and talk, wring their hands and deliver an endless stream of "reports" and "recomendations" which become meaningless, as there is nobody with the power to implement them.

The minsters are appointed by, and are controlled by, Chavez personally and it seems none of them will ever make a positive decision (except to make no decision or delay their decision) without specific approval of Chavez.

I suspect Chavez has little time for what he considers "minor domestic issues" as he continues to strut on the international stage and while he makes the odd decision (apparently without consulation from anyone) like nationalising a Spanish bank or a cement company, no minister is game to actually bite the bullet on even the most basic decision for fear of going against Chavez's unknown whim or agenda.

Remember that it was Chavez personally who ranted about Placer Dome dragging their feet on developing LC over 8 years ago. At that time, he wanted development and was understandably angry when PD didn't perform even though there were good econmoic reasons for it at that time.

Run the clock forward to today, and we see Chavez as somebody prepared to allow "his" workers to starve to fulfil some idealogical but unplanned system simply because he is too distracted by delusions of grandeur to make up his mind.

Chavez also has a policy of making people or regions which haven't supported him in the electoral process, suffer either by edicts of commission or ommision. That way whole regions are punished by government neglect, with the peace enforced by the natonal guard. He rather prefers the stick rather than the carrot approach, but while that has worked in Zimbabwe for Mugabe I doubt it will be tolerated for too long in Venezuela.