Fists fly in Parliament as ‘fascists’ take offence
VENEZUELA
VENEZUELA’S deep political rift exploded in Parliament after MPs from the ruling Socialist Party came to blows with Opposition members who accused them of staging a coup.
An employee at the assembly said that fights broke out after members of the Opposition, who claim to have won last month’s election, which returned Acting President Nicolas Maduro to power, blew whistles and shouted ‘‘fascist’’ at the House Speaker, Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of the late leader Hugo Chavez.
The Opposition unfurled a banner saying ‘‘parliamentary coup’’ after the national election commission refused their calls for a full manual recount of the vote.
MPs from the ruling party attacked them, the worker said, and a brawl began, with members throwing laptops and tables at each other, and one being hit over the head with a chair. At least seven people were reported to have been injured.
Venezuelan Opposition politician Julio Borges, of the Primero Justicia party, arrives at a news conference with a bruised and bloodied face after a fight broke out at a session of the National Assembly in Caracas.
Security guards later inspected mobile phones of employees leaving the building to ensure no footage of the brawl was taken out.
Cabello, who has denounced Opposition leader Henrique Capriles as a ‘‘fascist’’, then denied the other side the right to address sembly, members said.
The Speaker, who served in the army with Chavez, told the rowdy Opposition legislators that they could address the media but not the assembly until they recognised
the
as- Maduro’s razor-thin victory.
‘‘They can beat us, jail us, kill us, but we will not sell out our principles,’’ said Julio Borges, an Opposition MP whose face was bruised and bloody. ‘‘These blows give us more strength.’’