Former chair of the National Constituent Assembly and ex minister of the Interior Luis Miquilena called "ambush" the government attempts at "smuggling" the contents of the refused constitutional reform.

Miquilena, formerly the political mentor of President Hugo Chávez, was making reference to a set of 26 statutory decrees listed last Friday in the Official Gazette.

"The country should stand up as strenuously and decisively as it did it on December 2nd," said Miquelena, once regarded as the president's political father. He accused the head of state of "being insolent enough to try to change the Constitution" by the adoption of the new legal instruments.

Asked about the differences between the way the Executive Office used the special powers granted by the legislature in 1999 and 2000, when he was a minister, Miquilena answered: "To tell you the truth, there was almost none. I took there a very controversial stance. These enabling laws were the beginning of my breakup with Chavezism. When such flimsy things were proposed, for instance, in the context of the agrarian reform, no improvements would be paid to the occupants of the plots of land rescued by the state, by arguing that these assets accounted for rent, I opposed such madness."