Venezuelans cast ballots in opposition ‘plebiscite’
SEEM SET TO REJECT MADURO’S CONTROVERSIAL PLAN TO REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION
Venezuelans went to the polls Sunday in a vote organised by the opposition aimed at gauging public support for Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution, against a backdrop of worsening political violence.
With authorities refusing to greenlight a vote presented as an act of civil disobedience and supporters of President Nicolas Maduro boycotting it, voters seemed set to reject the president’s controversial scheme.
The “plebiscite” comes two weeks ahead of a Madurobacked vote to elect a citizens’ body that would revise the constitution. The opposition has told people to stay away.
Dialogue unlikely
The cross-purpose initiatives have given rise to international worries — voiced by the Catholic Church and the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres — that the chances of bringing both sides together for dialogue has become more remote.
That, in turn, is stoking fears of more protests and running street battles with police, which have been persistent for the past three and a half months. Nearly 100 people have died in the unrest since the beginning of April.
While Maduro is deeply unpopular — with 80 per cent of Venezuelans criticising his rule, according to the Datanalisis survey firm — he enjoys backing from some, mostly poor, parts of the nation and, most importantly, from the military.
Many Venezuelans, though, are less focused on the political power play than they are on getting by day by day under their country’s crushing economic crisis, which has meant shortages of food and medicine.
The opposition, which accuses Maduro of trying to gain dictatorial powers with the constitutional rewrite a, said all was prepared for Sunday’s vote.
“Everything is ready,” one opposition figure, Maria Corina Machado, told AFP.
She predicted the vote would “not only reject the Constituent Assembly” — the body Maduro is seeking to have elected to come up with a new constitution — “but will give a mandate for a change of the regime, the end of the dictatorship and the start of a transition with a government of national unity.”
But Maduro, giving a national radio and TV broadcast, portrayed the vote as merely an “internal consultation by the opposition parties” with no electoral legitimacy.