Maduro defiant as Venezuela unrest spreads
Rivals fear assembly on new charter could rewrite rules or exclude opposition parties
Faced with mounting unrest, Venezuela’s unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro vowed on Tuesday to push ahead in July with the formation of a “constituent assembly” to rewrite the constitution before regional elections in December.
The South American Opec member has been racked by strife, with 55 people killed during unrest in the past two months as public anger boiled over due to an economic meltdown that has left many Venezuelans scrabbling to afford three meals a day.
In an apparent bid to show the government was seeking a democratic solution, the head of the pro-government electoral council said voting for a controversial “constituent assembly” would be held in late July. Regional gubernatorial elections, meant to have been held last year, would take place on December 10, he said.
The opposition reacted with fury, convinced that these moves were Maduro’s way of clinging to power.
Maduro’s rivals fear that a new constituent assembly could rewrite rules or exclude opposition parties, making a sham of future elections that would likely vanquish the ruling socialists if the polls were free and fair.
“Today’s decision is nothing more than an evil announcement meant to divide, distract, and confuse Venezuelans further,” said Congress president Julio Borges, the opposition leader whose coalition is pushing for early elections, humanitarian aid to alleviate food and medicine shortages, and freedom for jailed activists.
“Today we’ve entered a new stage and that means more struggle and more street action,” Borges said in a video on Tuesday night.
Magistrate decries plan
Riots and looting have raised risks that protests could spin out of control, given the widespread hunger, anger at Maduro and easy access to weapons in one of the world’s most violent countries.
A Supreme Court magistrate decried the planned assembly, saying it was “not the solution to the crisis” and called on Maduro to “think carefully” to avoid more bloodshed.
Maduro was undaunted on Tuesday, presenting the proposed 540-member “constituent assembly” as a way to defuse antigovernment protests, which he says are part of a US-backed conspiracy to overthrow “21st Century socialism.”
“Votes or bullets, what do the people want?” Maduro asked a crowd of redshirted supporters waving Venezuelan flags at the Miraflores presidential palace.
“Let’s go to elections now!” he said, before detailing how the new assembly will be partially elected by votes at a municipal level and partially by different groups, including workers, farmers, students, and indigenous people.
In a telling sign of internal dissent, Venezuela’s state prosecutor warned that Maduro’s plan for a grass roots congress risked deepening the crisis.
“Persistent and increasingly violent unrest will eventually prompt key stakeholders to abandon Maduro and negotiate a rapid transition that sets a timetable for new elections; the precise timing is impossible to predict, however,” the Eurasia Group political consultancy said in a note to clients on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people have been injured in the country’s violence, around 2,700 arrested, with 1,000 still behind bars, and 335 tried in military tribunals, according to rights groups.