DEVELOPMENTS OF VENEZUELAN FEDERALISM

This article analyzes the "mutation" occurred to the federal form of government in Venezuela, since its initial conception as a Federal State, up to its transformation into a contradictory Centralized Federation. The federal form of the State was initially adopted in the first 1811 Federal Constitution of the United Provinces of Venezuela, and it has been since then in all the Constitutions up to the current one of 1999. Nonetheless, in practice and excepting during the political period of the "Federal State" (1863-1901), the Federation has not been developed, and on the contrary has been altered into a "Centralized federation." This occurred not only during the political period of the "Autocratic Centralized State (1901-1961), with the consolidation of the National State, but also during the "Democratic State" period, developed since 1961. Within the latter, up to 1999, and spite of the decentralizing intents made between 1989 and 1993, the Federation was no more than a desideratum; and since 1999, in spite of the declaration in the Constitution of the State as being a "Decentralized Federation," it has been no more than a great lie, through which the constitutional provisions have been mutated consolidating the current Centralized and Centralizing State., including the creation in parallel of a Popular o Communal State structure in order to eliminate the Constitutional State. This article analyzes such process.