Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro's opponents to stage shutdown today as anti-govt protests continue

Caracas: President Nicolas Maduro’s adversaries are to stage a two-day national strike from Wednesday in a final push to pressure him into abandoning a weekend election for a super-congress they say will institutionalise autocracy in Venezuela. Millions participated in a 24-hour shutdown last week, leaving businesses closed, families behind doors, and streets barricaded or empty across swathes of Venezuela.

“From 6 am tomorrow, we are going to paralyse this country,” opposition lawmaker and street activist Juan Requesens said. “We have shown Nicolas Maduro and his group there is no love for them anywhere in Venezuela or the world.”

[caption id=“attachment_3396180” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of protests against President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. AP[/caption] The opposition, which has majority support after years in the shadow of the Socialist Party during the rule of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, says Maduro’s planned Constituent Assembly is a farce designed purely to keep him in power. The 54-year-old president, who calls himself “the son of Chavez” and flag bearer of his “21st century socialism” project, insists Sunday’s vote will go ahead despite intense pressure at home and abroad including a threat of United States economic sanctions. Maduro says the election for the 545-seat assembly, which will have power to rewrite the national constitution and override the current opposition-led legislature, is designed to put power in the hands or ordinary people. “We are going to decide between war and peace, the future or the past, the sovereign power of the people or the imperialist, oligarchical coup,” he told supporters late on Tuesday of the vote, which the opposition is boycotting.