VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports: The National Assembly (AN) has passed the second reading of the communal councils bill.

The new law will regulate the "constitution, setting up, organization and functioning of the councils as instances of participation in the direct exercise of popular sovereignty and their relations with public power organs and bodies in the formulation, execution, control and evaluation of public policies, along with plans and projects for community development."

Article 3 makes it clear that the idea is to establish a "socio-political base of Socialism that will consolidate a new political, social, cultural and economic model."

The bill states that a communal council will be made up of five groups: an assembly of citizens, community coordination collective, executive unit, community financial & administrative unit and social comptrollership unit.

The collective, which has been a source of debate and controversy during a three-month consultative period, will consist of spokespersons from the executive unit, community financial & administrative unit and the social comptrollership unit and comes across in the bill as a combination of steering, coordination and publicity committee.

The executive unit is important because it houses representatives from all kinds of committees in the community, such as housing, communal economy, security and defense, community media, sports, water, energy and gas, child protection, and education.

The bill goes into great detail about communal council finances and funding.

In defining the role of the ministry of popular power for citizen participation, the bill outlines the ministry's role in "dictating strategic policies, general plans, programs and projects for community participation in public affairs."

The words "accompanying" and "facilitating" are used to define the relation between government institutions, such as Fundacomunal and the councils. In other words, Fundacomunal is entrusted with registering the councils and handing them their certificate, setting up and delivering training programs, providing feedback on financing and projects, opening up job opportunities, providing technical assistance and ensuring the correct administration of resources.

One major change in the second reading has been to dissolve the figure of cooperatives, especially in communal banking.

AN deputy Dario Vivas said that the new bill will ensure that state institutions become subordinate to popular power with councils and eventually communes emerging as an autonomous power.

Yesterday, President Chavez called for greater leadership from ministers and officials and hinted that they should not be satisfied with so-called "socio-political" courses for members of communal councils.

The President objected to the creeping "personalist" practice of councils paying homage to ministers or mayors instead of to the Bolivarian revolution and Socialism.

Patrick J. O'Donoghue
news.editor@vheadline.com