Opposition takes control of parliament

Venezuela’s opposition took majority control of the National Assembly on Tuesday after years in the political wilderness, setting the stage for a potential power struggle with embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Lawmakers were sworn in during a heated parliamentary session that saw pro-government representatives walk out in protest after pushing their way onto the dais as the new leadership tried to lay out its legislative agenda.

It’s the first time in 17 years, since elections in December 1998, that opponents of the revolution begun by the late president Hugo Chavez have held a majority in the legislature, and many leaders seemed rapt in disbelief.

The opposition won a twothirds majority in a landslide election victory last month, giving it unprecedented strength to challenge Mad ur o’ s rule. But that key super majority is now in doubt after a government-stacked Supreme Court barred four lawmakers from taking their seats at the last minute while it considers allegations of electoral fraud. As a result, only 163 of 167 lawmakers were sworn in during Tuesday’s ceremony.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of opposition supporters accompanied the incoming lawmakers past a heavy military barricade to the neoclassical legislature downtown. A few blocks away, a much larger crowd of government supporters gathered outside the presidential palace to lament the inauguration of what they call a “bourgeois parliament” intent on “legislating slavery”.

Conspicuously absent inside the domed building were the oversize portraits of Chavez giving a salute and independence hero Simon Bolivar that had been a fixture for years.