Maduro takes aim at enemies
VENEZUELA: Emboldened by a violence-marred vote to elect a new constitutional assembly, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro promised Monday to take punitive measures against protest leaders, the opposition-controlled congress, the news media and his own attorney general, including possible jail terms.
In response yesterday to the vote, which was widely denounced internationally as illegitimate, the United States announced sanctions against Maduro, making him just the fourth head of state subject to such restrictions. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the government was freezing any assets Maduro held in the US.
‘‘Maduro is not just a bad leader,’’ national security adviser H R McMaster said at a White House news conference with Mnuchin. ‘‘He is a now a dictator.’’
The other heads of state being sanctioned by the US are North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
Earlier in the day, Maduro had delivered a celebratory speech in Bolivar Plaza in central Caracas, the capital.
‘‘The constitutional assembly will do away with parliamentary immunity for whom it should be cancelled. The assembly will allow (the imposition of) order,’’ he said. ‘‘Some will end up in a jail cell.’’
Maduro spoke after the National Electoral Council claimed that a higher than expected 8.1 million voters, or 41.5 percent of eligible voters, turned out on Sunday to elect 537 members to the new constituent assembly, which could convene as early as Friday to draft a new constitution.
Those figures were sharply disputed by both the political opposition and by independent analysts.
Opposition leaders, who urged protesters to boycott the vote as an illegal sham to perpetuate Maduro’s presidency, insisted that exit polls showed that no more than 3.6 million people cast ballots - about 18.5 per cent of registered voters.
Critics also said the turnout was distorted by what they described as a forced vote by public employees, who otherwise risked losing their jobs.
There are fears that the new charter could hand Maduro dictatorial powers and abrogate the democratically elected National Assembly. The US, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Britain and several other governments have said any new constitution to emerge from the assembly will be in their eyes illegitimate.
The deeply unpopular president went ahead with the assembly vote despite repudiation from foreign leaders and opinion polls that showed nearly three-quarters of Venezuelans thought a new constitution to be illegal or unnecessary. Recent polls have put Maduro’s approval rating as low as 20 per cent.
The president’s threats of poss- ible jail terms for opposition figures have reinforced fears of increased repression in the aftermath of the vote. Maduro has specifically threatened to jail opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara, a prominent assemblyman and former student leader, who he accuses of inciting violence.
Maduro criticised the nation’s three private TV broadcasters, Televen, Globovision and Venevision, for their coverage of the election and the violence sur- rounding it, as well as Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who declared the new assembly to be in violation of the 1999 constitution. ‘‘We are in communicational combat against the lies of the broadcasters,’’ Maduro said.
At a news conference yesterday, Ortega Diaz, whose office fulfills the function of public advocate, said the new assembly ran counter to the spirit of former president Hugo Chavez, who was Maduro’s mentor, and had isolated Venezuela in the international community.
‘‘The object of the constitutional assembly is do away with whatever obstacles remain to absolute power,’’ said Ortega Diaz. ‘‘We are confronting a crime against humanity.’’
At least 120 people have died since late March in clashes with police and national guard tropps. Some 3500 have been injured and 5000 arrested through Sunday.
Protests, which are expected to continue this week, were provoked by a supreme court ruling in late March that deprived the National Assembly of its lawmaking powers and transferred them to Maduro’s discretion. Although the ruling was partially rescinded, protests have continued over continuing food and medicine shortages, rising crime and the president’s autocratic governing style.
The new constitutional assembly may be presided over by Maduro’s wife, Celia Flores, or by Diosdado Cabello, the hardline vice president of the socialist PSUV party, founded by Chavez.
Julio Borges, who presides over the National Assembly, said members of congress would not abandon the Legislative Palace, despite the spectre of ‘‘clashes, force and violence’’. – LA Times