OPPOSITION CALLS FOR MORE STREET PROTESTS AGAINST GOVERNMENT
CARACAS Venezuelan opposition leaders called Monday for escalated street protests after more than seven million people rejected a government plan to rewrite the constitution and consolidate power over the country, which has been stricken by shortages and inflation and riven by more than 100 days of clashes between protesters and police.
The opposition said 7,186,170 Venezuelans participated in a symbolic referendum rejecting President Nicolas Maduro’s plans for the July 30 election of an assembly that would remake the country’s political system.
Maduro’s allies have called on the assembly to impose executive branch authority over the few remaining institutions outside the control of Venezuela’s socialist ruling party.
A coalition of some 20 opposition parties met Monday to call for a “zero hour” campaign of civil disobedience in the two weeks leading to the government vote.
More than three months of opposition protests have left at least 93 people dead and 1,500 wounded. More than 500 protesters and government opponents have been jailed.
“Right now we have to escalate and deepen this street movement,” National Assembly President Julio Borges told local radio station Exitos ahead of the opposition announcement, which was delayed more than two hours into the early afternoon as the opposition discussed its next steps behind closed doors.