Already reeling from massive antigovernment marches in recent weeks, Venezuela is bracing for more demonstrations Wednesday as increasingly vocal activists protest the surprise plan by President Nicolas Maduro to draft a new constitution. Opposition leaders condemned the proposal as an antidemocratic move that will only aggravate the country’s ongoing political crisis.

In an announcement at a May Day rally Monday, Maduro said he would seek to replace the constitution pushed through in 2000 by his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez. The new document would be drafted at an assembly consisting of 500 delegates, 250 of whom will be selected from “communal” groups recognized by Maduro’s government, which will likely assure his control over the final version, opponents said.



For the record: An earlier version of this story said the protests were ignited by the April 4 decision by the Supreme Court to strip the National Assembly of its legislative powers. That decision was made March 29.

Maduro critics expressed their outrage at the plan at a time when his government has curtailed the powers of the opposition-controlled National Assembly and indefinitely postponed elections of governors and mayors.

Henrique Capriles, an opposition leader and governor of Miranda state, said at a news conference Tuesday that the Maduro plan was a “constitutional fraud” and a “mechanism to do away once and for all with the National Assembly.” He called on supporters to go to the streets Wednesday to voice their opposition to the plan.

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Late Monday, opposition Assemblyman Julio Borges, who heads an alliance of opposition parties, said the aim of the new constitutional assembly would be to “dissolve democracy and the republic…. It’s a swindle designed to fool the people.”

The United States and countries throughout Latin America have denounced the Maduro government in recent weeks. In response Venezuela has threatened to withdraw from the Organization of American States.

On Tuesday, Michael Fitzpatrick, the State Department deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters in Washington that the U.S. will talk to other countries in the region to consider imposing new sanctions on Venezuela in light of Maduro’s recent crackdown on dissent.

Maduro’s approval rating has plummeted to 21%, according to a recent poll by Datincorp, a political consulting agency, as even past supporters grow weary of food shortages, violent crime and a collapsed economy.

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Also on Monday, Maduro announced the third increase this year in the minimum wage, raising it by 60%. But even so, wages are not keeping pace with galloping inflation, which according to the International Monetary Fund could reach 720% this year.

“The current constitution is a nothing but an obstacle for the new radical phase of the ‘revolution,’” said Datincorp analyst Jesus Seguias in a text to the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “From here on out, the socialist plan of [the Maduro government] is possible only in a dictatorship.”

In a televised speech Monday night, Maduro said half of the constitutional assembly’s delegates would come from groups representing “the working-class base, the communes, the social movements, handicapped groups, retirees, indigenous, students and youth.”

The remaining 250 delegates would be elected by Venezuelan voters at large. Capriles, who urged Maduro opponents to boycott such an election, said voting for “all delegates to such an assembly has to be direct, universal and secret.”

Since early April, cities across Venezuela have been engulfed in protests and sometimes violent clashes with police and National Guard that have left 29 dead, 437 injured and 1,289 arrests. The protests were ignited by the March 29 decision by the Maduro-aligned Supreme Court to strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its legislative powers.

Although the court, at Maduro’s urging, quickly retracted the decision, protests were soon reignited when the controller general’s office ruled Capriles was ineligible to stand for election until 2032 because of alleged misuse of public funds as governor.

Capriles, who denied the charges, was seen as Maduro’s strongest potential opponent in presidential elections due to be held next year. Capriles also challenged the controller’s authority to disqualify a sitting governor, saying only the Supreme Court had that power.

Luis Salamanca, political science professor at Central University of Venezuela in Caracas , said Maduro’s plan is a political calculation, not a constitutional one.

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“Maduro is looking for a way to avoid elections that should be held soon: governors and mayors this year and presidential elections in 2018, and to preserve his power without them,” Salamanca said.

Salamanca added that another reason for the new constitution would likely be “to take the National Assembly out of play and create a communal parliament so that Maduro could assume absolute powers, like a monarch, liquidating the republic.”

Special correspondents Mogollon and Kraul reported from Caracas, Venezuela, and Bogota, Colombia, respectively.

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After GM flees their country, Venezuelans take sides over who is to blame</s>Venezuela’s Maduro calls for new constitution as protests rage

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for a new constitution Monday as he fights to quell a crisis that has led to more than a month of protests against him and deadly street violence.

The opposition immediately rejected the idea because the body drafting the new charter would not be the result of a popular election but rather be composed of workers and farmers.

Maduro’s announcement, to thousands of supporters in Caracas marking May Day, came as security forces sprayed tear gas and water cannon at anti-government demonstrators elsewhere in the capital.

It was likely to sharpen international concerns over Venezuela’s adherence to democracy and fears it was slipping over a precipice to civil conflict.

The opposition slammed the tactic as a “coup d’etat” and urged protesters to “block the streets” from Tuesday. It said it was organizing a “mega protest” for Wednesday.

“People, into the streets! You must disobey such lunacy!” opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Twitter.

The leader of the opposition-held Congress, Julio Borges, said: “What Maduro is proposing in his desperation is that Venezuela never again manages to have direct, free and democratic voting.”

Maduro said he was invoking his power to create a 500-member constituent assembly representing a “working class base” and local councils to rewrite the constitution — cutting out the Congress.

The decree was needed to “block the fascist coup” he said threatened the country, repeating terms portraying his Socialist government as the victim of a US-led capitalist conspiracy.

– Ongoing protests –

 The new constitution-writing entity would be “a citizen’s constituent body, not from political parties — a people’s constituent body,” he said, adding the National Electoral Council would start work on the process on Tuesday.

Maduro’s move mirrored that of his late Socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez, who in 1999 had a 131-member Constituent Assembly of various representatives draw up Venezuela’s current constitution. The text was overwhelmingly passed by a referendum.

Back then, though, the charismatic Chavez enjoyed enthusiastic public support. Maduro, in contrast, is disapproved of by seven in 10 Venezuelans according to pollsters Venebarometro.

Political analyst Nicmer Evans said that with his new proposal Maduro is “playing for time at all cost, in order to stay in power”.

“The pro-Chavez movement is convening the only kind of election it can win by manipulating the way voting is held,” said Eugenio Martinez, an analyst who specializes in elections.

Anti-Maduro antipathy was evident on the streets Monday. Riot police officers clashed with hundreds of protesters, some throwing stones, who tried to break through security barriers to the electoral council headquarters.

Opposition leaders have vowed no letup in their protests demanding early elections to get rid of Maduro, whose term ends late next year.

They blame him for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food and medicine.

Clashes between protesters and riot police left 28 people dead last month, according to prosecutors.

A lawmaker was injured in the head in Caracas, photographs published online by his supporters showed. Similar protests took place in other towns across the country.

“I am out fighting for Maduro to go. This is a dictatorship in disguise,” said Matilde Rodriguez, 67, from the working class Petare district of Caracas.

“Venezuela is in intensive care. There is no food and they’ll kill you for a pair of shoes.”

– ‘Betrayal’ of Chavez –

 Analysts say street rallies are one of the few means the opposition has left of pressuring Maduro.

The president’s demand for a new constitution was a way of running out the clock on demands for elections, they said.

“Maduro is gaining time at the expense of everybody, including by stomping on the roadmap left by Chavez himself,” said Socialist-leaning Nicmer Evans.

“This constituent assembly Maduro wants is a clear betrayal of Chavez and the people.”

The violence and political spiral in Venezuela is increasingly unsettling other countries and regional blocs.

Pope Francis has offered to have the Vatican mediate, but was rebuffed by the opposition, which walked away from a previous attempt at dialogue in December when the government did not free political prisoners or set early elections as demanded.

Maduro initially voiced support for the pope’s offer. But on Monday, he said the only response to dialogue was the constituent assembly he was setting up.

– International unease –

 The president has rejected opposition calls for general elections before his term ends.

He had said he was willing to hold regional polls postponed in December, but electoral authorities did not set a date.

The president has bristled at what he calls international interference in his country’s affairs.

Venezuela last week said it was quitting the Organization of American States after it and other international bodies expressed concern about the country’s adherence to democracy.

Another regional bloc, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is to hold an extraordinary meeting on Venezuela in El Salvador on Tuesday.

This post was syndicated from The Guardian Nigeria. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

Also, Like us on facebook</s>CARACAS: Venezuela's beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro on Monday (May 1) called for a new constitution, to be written by a "people's" body circumventing the opposition-held Congress.

The decree was to "block the fascist coup" threatening the country, he told thousands of supporters in Caracas at a May Day rally.

The new constitution-writing entity would be "a citizen's constituent body, not from political parties - a people's constituent body," he said.

Maduro's move mirrored that of his late Socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez, who in 1999 had a Constituent Assembly of various representatives draw up Venezuela's current constitution. The text was overwhelmingly passed by a referendum.

Venezuela is in the grip of more than a month of near-daily protests against Maduro marked by violence that has killed nearly 30 people.

The unrest is fuelled by an economic collapse in the oil-producing nation that has caused shortages of food and medicine.

Maduro says the country is being roiled as part of a US-led capitalist plot.

The opposition says Maduro, backed by the military, is ruling in an increasingly dictatorial fashion and only early elections can provide a solution.

Maduro told the May Day crowd that he would submit the application for the new body to write the referendum to the National Electoral Council on Monday.

It urges the election of 500 people to sit on the assembly. Around half would be drawn from sectors of society - from a "working class base," Maduro said - directly choosing their representatives, while the other half would be named by local councils across the country.

"It is going to be a Constituent Assembly elected by direct vote by the people," he said.

Venezuela's current constitution permits the president to establish such a body. "I am giving you the power that Hugo Chavez gave me," Maduro told the crowd. "Go and win this battle."

Anti-government street demonstrations in Venezuela surged from April 1 after the Supreme Court tried to strengthen Maduro's grip on power by stripping authority from the legislature.

Maduro has rejected opposition calls for general elections before his term ends late next year. He has rejected what he calls international interference in his country's affairs.

Venezuela last week said it was quitting the Organisation of American States after it and other international bodies expressed concern about the country's adherence to democracy.

Another regional bloc, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is to hold an extraordinary meeting on Venezuela in El Salvador on Tuesday.</s>Struggling to control a deepening political crisis, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called for a new constitution, a move denounced by his opponents.

Maduro signed a presidential decree Monday ordering a constitutional assembly. He shared a hazy description of the plan in a televised speech, saying some of its 500 members would be elected by “workers” to replace the document last revised in 1999 under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

“The day has come, brothers. Don’t fail me now. Don’t fail Chavez and don’t fail your motherland,” the Associated Press quoted the socialist leader as saying.

Fewer than half of the assembly participants would be elected, Maduro said, noting political parties would not participate.

Maduro’s opponents and some analysts called the measure a pretext to postpone regional elections scheduled for this year and presidential elections for 2018.

Opposition leaders urged Venezuelans to ignore Maduro’s declaration and to sustain the near-daily street protests that have gone on for more than a month.

“We must continue fighting,” Julio Borges, president of the opposition-led National Assembly, said Monday evening. He labeled Maduro’s move “a scam to deceive the Venezuelan people with a mechanism that is nothing more than a coup.”

Borges encouraged Venezuelans to shut down Caracas’ streets for two hours Tuesday and to mobilize for intensified demonstrations on Wednesday.

"Let them know that they have to massacre a town or imprison us, or destroy us, but the Venezuelan people will not give up," he added.

Thousands of Maduro’s supporters marched in Caracas on Monday — Labor Day — to show continued enthusiasm for the so-called "Bolivarian revolution" launched 18 years ago by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

Long-simmering political tensions erupted in late July when Venezuela’s Supreme Court — dominated by Chavez and Maduro appointees — issued a ruling to revoke the National Assembly’s legislative powers. It reversed the decision after a domestic and international outcry, but that has not quelled public anger.

Demonstrators are pressing to restore democratic norms, including recognizing the National Assembly’s legislation, releasing political prisoners and allowing humanitarian aid.

Years of political and economic turmoil have led to severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.

The protracted protests against the Maduro administration have left 29 people dead, hundreds injured and about 1,300 detained.</s>Venezuelan protesters took to the streets of Caracas on Tuesday in opposition to President Nicolás Maduro — and his calls to create a new constitution.

On Monday, Maduro called not for new elections, as many in the opposition and abroad had urged him to do, but rather for a new constitution, to be established by a newly-formed constituent assembly. The opposition fears Maduro is using this as a ploy to further delay elections in which his party is sure to perform poorly, and that he would pack the constituent assembly with individuals loyal to him.

Maduro has the right to call for a new constitution. But that step, said Moises Rendon of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, must be followed by a referendum, which Maduro seems to have bypassed. More broadly, it’s unclear what the rules of the game would be for drafting a new charter — and why that would be a priority now, when the country faces an economic and social cataclysm.

A new constitution raises far more questions than it answers. Who would get to be on the constituent assembly? What, exactly, would this new constitution look like? Are regional elections still going to be held this year? Would opposition member Leopoldo Lopez be released from jail? Would Henrique Capriles be allowed to hold office at some point in the next 15 years?

There’s also the question of whether the opposition would even try to participate. Julio Borges, president of the National Assembly, seen as the last stronghold of the opposition, has already dismissed the move as a fraudulent distraction and called for defense of the current constitution. But other parts of the fractured opposition might decide that being in the game is better than being on the sidelines, said Shannon K. O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Rendon thinks the gamesmanship will just fuel more anger at Maduro. “This will only trigger more protests. More people on the streets,” he said.

Those people would be joining the thousands who have been protesting in Venezuela for the past month, ever since the Supreme Court, seen as controlled by Maduro, tried to take over the functions of the National Assembly. That decision has mostly been reversed, but protests have continued — and 29 have been killed in the process.

More importantly, said O’Neil, a new constitution “will do nothing to fix the economic and humanitarian situation,” and won’t start to deal with hyperinflation, solve the lack of food or medicine, or fix hospitals. Venezuela, once the richest country in Latin America, has been plunged into dysfunction by years of economic mismanagement under Maduro and former strongman Hugo Chavez — who pulled the “create a new constitution” trick back in 2000.

But a new constitution might just keep Maduro and those close to him in power for a little while longer, which, to Maduro, seems to be far and away the most important thing.</s>(CNN) Venezuelan opposition leaders on Monday decried President Nicolas Maduro's announcement that he is pushing for changes in the Constitution.

Maduro has called for a "Constituent National Assembly" -- a body that could make those changes. It also would allow for the reshaping of the current legislative body, as well as redefine the President's executive powers.

"We must modify this state, especially the rotten National Assembly that's currently there," Maduro said. The body is controlled by the opposition.

Maduro made his announcement while speaking to a large crowd of government supporters who had gathered for May Day celebrations.

While the atmosphere at Maduro's speech was one of excitement and celebration, elsewhere in Caracas opposition protesters were being met with tear gas and water cannons. Opposition protesters have been out on the streets since the beginning of April, calling for elections.

Maduro said he would unveil more details at the signing of the decree creating the assembly.

While Maduro provided few details, he said that the new body would contain "some 500 constituents."

The elected constituents would represent all sectors of the Venezuelan society, including workers, youth, women, peasants, those who receive pensions, and indigenous people, among others. He said some 200-250 would be elected via direct vote.

He emphasized that those elected to the body would be chosen by the people -- and not by the political parties.

Leonel Alfonso Ferrer, a Venezuelan constitutional attorney, tells CNN en Espanol that, in the short term, nothing changes.

"The country will continue to be ruled by the political institutions that it currently has. The presidency will remain in the hands of Nicolas Maduro. The National Assembly Venezuelan will still be controlled by the opposition, and so on. When the national constituent assembly is in place and its members are chosen, that assembly, as an original constituent power, will have powers that are above the Constitution and will eventually be able to rewrite the Constitution and transform the state [...] as well as remove the president, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court."

The last time Venezuela called for a Constituent National Assembly was in 1999, when then-President Hugo Chavez drew up the country's current Constitution. Maduro said it would be a special chapter in the country's history, a move to defeat the "facist coup" and to promote peace and stability in the country.

The opposition has called this move by Maduro a "self-coup." Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said Maduro was "killing the Venezuelan Constitution."

Julio Borges, leader of the National Assembly, echoed Capriles's statement, calling it a coup against the Constitution and democracy. He called it a fraud.

"What has happened today, and I say without exaggerating or trying to be dramatic, is the greatest coup in the history of Venezuela. It's Nicolas Maduro dissolving democracy and dissolving our republic. Faced with this, the Democratic Unity Party and the members of the National Assembly call on the Venezuelan people to rebel and refuse to accept this coup."

Venezuela has been rocked by violent protests in recent weeks as opposition leaders have faced off with Maduro and his supporters. Venezuela's attorney general said that at least 29 people have been killed since the protests erupted at the beginning of April. This number includes many cases unrelated to the political protests, including incidents of looting, CNN has found.

Anti-government protesters want Maduro to step down and new elections be held. The government has repeatedly blocked any attempts to oust Maduro from power by a referendum vote. It has also delayed local and state elections.</s>Venezuela's increasingly embattled president called Monday for a new constitution as an intensifying protest movement entered a second month amid clashes between police and demonstrators.

After hundreds of thousands took to the streets again to call for his ouster, President Nicolas Maduro announced that he was calling for a citizens assembly and a new constitution for the economically flailing South American nation. He said the move was needed to restore peace and stop his political opponents from trying to carry out a coup.

Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that Maduro was seeking to further erode Venezuela's constitutional order.

Earlier in the day, anti-Maduro protests tried to march on government buildings in downtown Caracas, but police blocked their — just as authorities have done more than a dozen times in four weeks of near-daily protests. Officers launched tear gas and chased people away from main thoroughfares as the peaceful march turned into chaos.

Opposition lawmaker Jose Olivares was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and was led away with blood streaming down his face. Some demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs and dragged trash into the streets to make barricades.

A separate government-sponsored march celebrating May Day went off without incident in the city.

Between the two demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people filled central roads and highways of the city.

At least 29 people have died in the unrest of the past month and hundreds have been injured.

People of all ages and class backgrounds are participating in the protests. The unrest started in reaction to an attempt to nullify the opposition controlled-congress, but has become a vehicle for people to vent their fury at widespread shortages of food and other basic goods, violence on a par with a war zone, and triple-digit inflation. Maduro accuses his opponents of conspiring to overthrow him and undermine the country's struggling economy.

Protesters have begun showing up for demonstrations with medical masks and bandanas to protect from the clouds of tear gas that police often deploy without warning. Gas masks are hard to find in the shortage-plagued economy, and the government is limiting people bringing them in from abroad.

Many protesters vowed Monday to keep pressuring the government.

"We're ready to take the streets for a month or however long is needed for this government to understand that it must go," said Sergio Hernandez, a computer technology worker.

Authorities set up checkpoints that snarled traffic on main highways and closed the city's subway system, in what opposition leader Henrique Capriles called a futile attempt to hamper the anti-government march.

"The truth is out and no one can stop it," Capriles said.

Hannah Dreier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier . Her work can be found at https://www.ap.org/explore/venezuela-undone .</s>In this Jan. 18, 2017, file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. President Maduro called on Monday, May 1, for a citizens congress and a new constitution, as he faces an escalating political crisis.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Fredericksburg.com.</s>Move to exclude political parties from constitution-writing entity seen by opposition parties as bid to sideline them.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has announced the creation of a new popular assembly with the ability to rewrite the constitution, a move that opponents labelled a power grab aimed at defusing anti-government protests.

The opposition has been demanding general elections to try and end the socialists' 18-year rule.

"I don't want a civil war," Maduro told a large May Day rally of supporters in Caracas business hub, while elsewhere across the city security forces fired tear gas at youth hurling stones and petrol bombs after opposition marches were blocked.

Maduro has triggered an article of the constitution that creates a super-body known as a "constituent assembly".

It can dissolve public powers and call general elections, echoing a previous assembly created by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, in 1999 soon after he won office.

"I convoke the original constituent power to achieve the peace needed by the Republic, defeat the fascist coup, and let the sovereign people impose peace, harmony and true national dialogue," Maduro told red-shirted supporters.

The new constitution-writing entity would be "a citizen's constituent body, not from political parties - a people's constituent body," he said, adding that the National Electoral Council would start work on the process on Tuesday.

Only half of the 500-member assembly, or less, would be elected, he said.

Opponents fear Maduro would stuff the assembly with supporters and manipulate the elected seats by giving extra weight to pro-government workers and unions.

They said it was another attempt to sideline the current opposition-led National Assembly and potentially avoid elections amid a bruising recession and protests that have led to 29 deaths in the last month.

Julio Borges, National Assembly president, on Monday evening called on Venezuelans to rebel.

"This is a scam to deceive the Venezuelan people with a mechanism that is nothing more than a coup," Borges said, urging Venezuelans to block streets early on Tuesday and hold another march on Wednesday.

On Monday night, opposition supporters banged on empty pots and pans from their windows in a traditional Latin American form of protest.

"People, into the streets! You must disobey such lunacy!" opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Twitter.

Since anti-Maduro unrest began in early April, more than 400 people have been injured and hundreds more arrested.

READ MORE: Venezuela's crisis explained from the beginning

While Maduro alleges a US-backed coup plot, opponents say he has wrecked the economy and become a tyrant.

Earlier on Monday riot police officers clashed with hundreds of protesters, some throwing stones, who tried to break through security barriers to the electoral council headquarters.

National Guard troops shot tear gas in a district of west Caracas towards hundreds of opposition protesters who were gathering to march.

Elsewhere, the National Guard blocked marchers pouring towards a major highway in front of the Avila mountain which towers over Caracas' northern edge.

Opposition supporters cheered as youth ran to the front, carrying makeshift shields made from rubbish bin lids, wood and even a satellite dish.

Some, wearing motorbike helmets, swimming goggles or bandanas over their mouths, threw stones and petrol bombs at the security line, with a protester yelling, "No one turn back!"

Others blocked roads in Caracas' wealthier Chacao area with branches and fences.</s>CARACAS, VENEZUELA—Caracas residents blocked streets with broken concrete and twisted metal and flaming piles of trash Tuesday to protest the socialist president’s bid to rewrite the constitution amid a deepening political crisis. President Nicolas Maduro signed a decree Monday to begin the process of rewriting the country’s charter. Opposition leaders called the planned constitutional assembly a ploy to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and a presidential election that was to be held in 2018. Polling suggests the socialists would lose both those elections badly at a time of widespread anger over triple-digit inflation and shortages of food and other goods. Speaking hours after yet another big anti-government march ended in rock throwing and tear gas, Maduro said a new constitution was needed to restore peace. “This will be a citizens’ assembly made up of workers,” the president said Monday. “The day has come brothers. Don’t fail me now.”

Venezuelans President Nicolas Maduro says he’s open to talk with opposition on crisis Venezuela opposition asks Wall Street to cut off Maduro as protests continue The president was vague about how members of the constitutional assembly would be chosen. He hinted some would selected by voters, but many observers expect the selection process to favour the socialists. If the constitutional process goes forward, opposition leaders will need to focus on getting at least some sympathetic figures included in the assembly. That could distract them from organizing the near-daily street protests that have kept up for four weeks, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said. “It’s a way of calling elections that uses up energy but does not carry risk, because it’s not a universal, direct and secret vote,” Leon said. “And it has the effect of pushing out the possibility of elections this year and probably next year as well.”

Venezuela’s constitution was last rewritten in 1999, early in the 14-year presidency of the late Hugo Chavez, who launched a socialist revolution in the oil-exporting nation. Chavez called his new constitution the best in the world, and promised it would last centuries. He carried around a blue pocket-sized version of the document, and would often whip it out and say, “This is our Bible. After the Bible, this.” At the height of his popularity, people would mob him to ask that he sign their copies. The opposition immediately seized on Maduro’s proposal for a new charter as evidence that his mentor’s revolution lies in shambles. The president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, called a constitutional assembly a “giant fraud” by Maduro and his allies designed to keep them in power. Borges said it would deny Venezuelans the right to express their views at the ballot box, and he urged the military to prevent the “coup” by Maduro. “What the Venezuelan people want isn’t to change the constitution but to change Maduro through voting,” he said. The opposition called for another major demonstration Wednesday. Police repressed scattered protests Tuesday with tear gas, as they have nearly daily for weeks. At least 29 people have died in the unrest of the past month and hundreds have been injured. On Tuesday, the government suspended for 180 days the right to carry guns.

The unrest began in reaction to an attempt to nullify the opposition controlled-congress, but has become a vehicle for people to vent their fury at Venezuela’s economic ruin and violent crime. Residents manning the barricades that choked streets across the capital Tuesday vowed to protest until Maduro leaves office. “Unlike some of these young people, I remember a time before the socialists. Now is not the time for fear,” said 36 year-old chauffeur Ricardo Herrera as he arranged trash and pieces of concrete into a street barricade in front of his apartment building. Herrera had so far sat out the protests because he had to get to work, but decided after Maduro’s announcement that he could no longer stand by. “No one is going to work today. If we back down now, we’ll be under their boot for the rest of our lives,” he said.
President Nicolas Maduro announces the drafting of a new constitution amid massive protests.