Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who distanced himself from the protests in 2014, said that this time the opposition is banking on mass mobilizations and worldwide pressure to get the government to accept the recall election. “I’m ready for everything”, he said before the opposition protest. A member of the Piaroa tribe was accused of fraud and jailed previous year during elections, “a case the government used to disqualify three indigenous leaders from taking seats in the opposition-controlled legislature”, the news service writes.
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If Maduro were to be voted out, his vice president would assume his rule, leaving the Socialist Party in power.
Triple-digit inflation, a third year of recession, shortages of basics, and long lines at shops have exasperated Venezuelans and underpinned a resounding opposition election win at a December legislative vote.
The opposition Democratic Unity coalition said the youths were infiltrators trying to sow trouble.
Venezuela’s constitution prohibits the government from using weapons or toxic substances, such as tear gas, to repel peaceful protesters, but Maduro’s Interior and Justice Minister Gen. Nestor Reverol – who was indicted in the United States on cocaine trafficking charges – recently said government intelligence suggests there could be acts of “violence and destabilization”.
President Nicolas Maduro during a rally in Caracas on September 1, 2016.
“If they come with coups and political violence, the revolution will have a huge response”.
At least a dozen opposition activists have been arrested this week, accused of planning violence around Thursday’s events, according to rights groups and opposition parties. Should it happen in 2017 and were he to lose, Maduro’s vice president would take over, keeping the ruling Socialist Party in power, rather than there being a new presidential election.
However, he believes, this frustration is not a call for USA intervention nor is it a desire to go back to the situation the country was in before 1999.
Edgar Zambrano, a publicist, said he was protesting because “the country is sinking”.
In a statement released at the end of the march, organizers said that it was up to the people on the streets to save the country from the socialist administration that holds nearly all levers of power, including the military and the courts. “It wants to show that it is a great majority in a country that wants change”.
Since early this week, Liborio Guarulla, the opposition governor of Amazon state, has been marching toward the capital with several hundred people.
Swearing loyalty to Chavez’s legacy and calling opposition leaders a wealthy elite intent on controlling Venezuela’s oil, red-shirted government supporters gathered for counter-rallies, though these were dwarfed by the opposition protests.
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Maduro tried to mock his opponents’ show of force, saying they had failed to amass more than 30,000 supporters and joking that he and First Lady Cilia Flores would go the movies at a shopping mall near where they were gathering. Experts predict Venezuela’s economy will shrink by 10% this year, while inflation will rise by 700%. Organizers said the provocatively-named “taking of Caracas” was just the beginning of a series of mass mobilizations aimed at cutting short the presidency of Nicolás Maduro.
