Protests erupt as Maduro calls for new constitution

CARACAS RESIDENTS blocked streets with trash bags, broken concrete and twisted metal Tuesday to protest the socialist President’s bid to rewrite the constitution amid a deepening political crisis.

President Nicolas Maduro signed a decree Monday to begin theprocessofrewritingthecountry’s charter. Opposition leaders cried foul, calling the planned assembly a ploy to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and a presidential election that was to be held in 2018.

Polling has suggested socialists will lose both those elections badly at a time of widespread anger over triple-digit inflation and shortages of food and other goods. Speaking hours after yet another big anti-government march ended in rock throwing by someprotestersandteargasfrom police, Maduro said a new constitution is needed to restore peace and stop the opposition from trying to carry out a coup.

“This will be a citizens’ assembly made up of workers,” the president said. “The day has come brothers. Don’t fail me now. Don’t fail (Hugo) Chavez and don’t fail your motherland.”

“I am no Mussolini,” he added. The president was vague in a televised speech Monday evening about how members of the constitutional assembly would be chosen. He hinted some would selected by voters, but many observers expect the government to give itself the power to pick a majority of delegates.

If the constitutional process goes forward, the opposition will need to focus on getting at least some sympathetic figures includedintheassembly.thatcould distract it from organising the street protests that have kept up for four weeks, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said. “It’s a way of calling elections that uses up energybutdoesnotcarryrisk,because it’s not a universal, direct and secret vote,” Leon said. AP