Venezuelan opposition calls for another strike

VENEZUELA’S opposition on Saturday called a fresh 48-hour general strike against embattled President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to have the constitution rewritten giving him broader powers.

“We are calling out the entire [Venezuelan] people, all groups in society, for a 48hour strike on Wednesday and Thursday,” opposition lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said.

With anti-government marchers still clearing streets on Saturday, Calzadilla said the strike would be capped on Friday with a march demanding that Maduro officially scrap his planned Constituent Assembly vote. It is scheduled for July 30.

Earlier police on motorcycles fired tear gas to break up an opposition march on the supreme court to press demands that elected socialist Maduro leave office, as months of sometimes deadly anti-government demonstrations showed no signs of abating.

That rally was also meant as a show of support for a slate of 33 magistrates – a socalled shadow supreme court – whose names were put forward on Friday by the opposition to replace Venezuela’s current high court, which is closely allied with Maduro and frequently rules in his favour.

Emboldened by a nationwide strike on Thursday that paralysed parts of the capital Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, opposition leaders held a mock swearingin ceremony on Friday for the shadow court’s new “judges”. Many of the actual court’s justices were hastily appointed shortly before Maduro’s ruling party lost its majority in congress.

The shadow court has strong support from the demonstrators, organisers said.

In Saturday’s march, hundreds of people took to a key Caracas motorway to head downtown towards the court building. But National Guard troops on motorcycles fired tear gas to disperse them.

The Venezuelan intelligence service arrested one of the shadow judges, Angel Zerpa Aponte, the opposition-controlled National Assembly said on Twitter. The swearing-in of a shadow judiciary was condemned by the government as “incitement to subversion” and an act of “treason,” and officials threatened throw the dissidents into prison.

Venezuela is in the throes of a political and economic crisis that has led to shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.

With the situation already inflamed, the stakes have risen further, after the US threatened economic sanctions if Maduro proceeds with a controversial July 30 election of a body to rewrite the constitution.

The president has vowed to maintain the July 30 election of 545 members to the “Constitutional Assembly”.

Saturday’s protests, like many others since April, were organised by the Democratic Unity Roundtable, a coalition of political opposition groups. — AFP to