Venezuela opposition sets up symbolic vote
Public will get chance to judge Maduro’s plan
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s opposition said Monday it will hold a symbolic referendum to give voters the opportunity to reject President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to rewrite the constitution.
The plan announced by National Assembly President Julio Borges is a dramatic escalation of the opposition’s effort to fight Maduro’s proposal. Borges said that the vote would be held July 16 — two weeks before Maduro is asking Venezuelans to go to the polls to choose delegates for a special assembly to overhaul the charter.
“We want the people to decide,” Borges told a crowd of opposition leaders gathered in eastern Caracas. “Today we’re united in a single bloc to defend our constitution.”
Protests against Maduro have swept across Venezuela the past three months, leaving at least 80 people dead and hundreds more jailed or injured, and the opposition-controlled legislature has embraced an agenda of civil disobedience.
Polls show that barely 20 percent of Venezuelans favor rewriting the late Hugo Chavez’s 1999 constitution — about the same level of support for Maduro. The opposition coalition has decided to boycott the polling.
Once seated, the constitutional assembly will have vast powers to reshape Venezuela’s institutions, and some in the opposition fear it could convert Venezuela into a Cuba-styled socialist system in which open elections would cease to exist.
But even with the threat of low turnout hanging over the process, the government seems determined to plow ahead.
Maduro has vowed to present any new constitution for a ratification vote, but the opposition argues that a referendum is required just to call a constitutional assembly. Both times Chavez attempted to rewrite the constitution, in 1999 and 2007, he sought a popular mandate before embarking on the process.