Four killed as Maduro ‘power grab’ goes ahead
VENEZUELA: A parliamentary candidate and an opposition activist were among four people killed in Venezuela yesterday as President Nicolas Maduro defied international pressure and internal strife to hold a controversial election.
Maduro summoned the conflictweary nation to the polls yesterday to vote in 545 members of a new constituent assembly, which his supporters claim will end months of violence, but his detractors say ushers in a dictatorship.
On the eve of the vote, Maduro appeared on state television and did not attempt to downplay the power grab he was orchestrating.
He described the vote as ‘‘the election of a power that’s above and beyond every other.’’ He added: ‘‘It’s the super power!’’
The assembly will have powers to rewrite the country’s 1999 constitution. Maduro said he wanted the assembly to strip opposition legislators of their constitutional immunity from prosecution, and carry out ‘‘a total transformation’’ of the office of the chief prosecutor - a former loyalist who has become fiercely critical of the government. ‘‘The Right wing already has its prison cell waiting,’’ said Maduro. ‘‘All the criminals will go to prison for the crimes they’ve committed.’’
Donald Trump, the US President, last week imposed sanctions on 13 senior members of Maduro’s regime, and his administration has threatened economic retaliation for going ahead with the vote. That could include halting sales of Venezuela’s oil to the US, which could bankrupt the country.
Luis Vicente Leon, head of the Datanalisis polling company, said the constituent assembly was being formed because the uncharismatic Maduro - whose term is meant to finish next year ‘‘can’t win elections’’.
Maduro, a former bus driver, voted before dawn yesterday, casting his ballot in a polling station a few hundred feet from a church where, earlier this month, a 61-year-old nurse was shot dead by men accused of being progovernment paramilitaries.
More than 100 people have died since April 1, as protests against Maduro’s government have paralysed many parts of the country aggravating shortages of essential goods and highlighting the humanitarian crisis.
In the early hours of yesterday, Jose Felix Pineda, a 39-year-old lawyer running for election to the assembly, was murdered by gunmen who stormed into his home in the southeastern town of Ciudad Bolivar. Ricardo Campos, leader of the youth wing of the opposition Accion Democratica, was killed outside his home in Cumana. Two others - Marcel Pereira and Iraldo Gutierrez - were killed during protests in the Andean city of Merida.
Henrique Capriles, an opposition leader, said: ‘‘The government wants to sell the constituent assembly as a solution to the problems. But it’s only aggravating them.’’
Photos on social media showed some empty polling stations. Maduro’s supporters, however, posted images of people queuing to vote.
The government tried to encourage participation by offering social benefits, such as subsidised food, to the poor, and threatening state workers’ jobs if they did not vote.
- Telegraph Group