{"id":460,"date":"2015-10-28T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/?p=460"},"modified":"2015-10-28T01:38:39","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T01:38:39","slug":"maduro-escalates-rhetoric-as-pressure-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/maduro-escalates-rhetoric-as-pressure-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"Maduro escalates rhetoric as pressure grows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuelan president cites \u2018emergency\u2019 and \u2018coup\u2019 plot as developments pile weight on government with key parliamentary elections on the horizon.<\/h4>\n
\"Venezuela's<\/a>

Venezuela’s President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro addresses a rally outside the National Electoral Council headquarters in Caracas.<\/p><\/div>\n

CARACAS \u2014 Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro called on his supporters yesterday to prepare an \u201canti-coup\u201d plan to ensure the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) wins the crucial upcoming parliamentary elections on December 6, as new developments pile further pressure on the president.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a rally with supporters outside the National Electoral Council (CNE) headquarters in Caracas, Maduro warned that Venezuela faced an \u201cemergency\u201d and \u201ccounter-revolutionary coup\u201d from the opposition after the vote, who he implied would not respect the results of the upcoming elections. Many analysts have tipped the ruling party to lose the balance of power in the National Assembly in December, but others caution that it\u2019s not the first time the opposition has been tipped to come out on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bolivarian Revolution declares an emergency with anti-coup plan to ensure electoral victory on December 6. This revolution will not be betrayed nor given up on. Let them know, the pelucones<\/em> (\u201crich people, snobs\u201d),\u201d he said in a speech to hundreds of supporters.<\/p>\n

The PSUV leader has escalated his rhetoric in recent days after the prosecutor of jailed hardline opposition leader Leopoldo L\u00f3pez grabbed column inches across the world after fleeing to the United States and denouncing the trial as a \u201cfarce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin Nieves, speaking in interviews published online with Venezuelan website La Patilla<\/em> and US newspaper\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, said that the trial of the controversial right-wing former mayor had been based on \u201cfalse evidence\u201d and at the whim of the government, which pressured the prosecutor to push on with the case.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez, the 44-year-old leader of the Popular Will party, is a divisive figure in Venezuela, where he has been accused of supporting a coup that briefly removed then-president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez from power in 2002 and for calling for the unconstitutional removal of Maduro from office. His trial and imprisonment drew international condemnation, especially in the United States which has cricitized the absence of due process and slammed Venezuela\u2019s judiciary as biased.<\/p>\n

Speaking yesterday, Venezuela\u2019s Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that Nieves had been fired for \u201cabandoning his post.\u201d Rubbing salt in the wounds, she added that the prosecutor had \u201clost his right to a pension, regrettably.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said however that Nieves would not face punishment, \u201cunless we find some element that makes us presume some irregularity,\u201d despite his apparent desire to claim asylum for him and his family in Miami, where he has now fled to.<\/p>\n

Nieves\u2019 defection has added to the dramatic polarization of the country\u2019s political climate, providing further ammunition for the opposition\u2019s claims of a clampdown by the government on human rights.<\/p>\n

Challenges opposition<\/h4>\n

Seeking to improve his democratic credentials ahead in the face of international criticism, Maduro challenged the main opposition coalition yesterday to sign a document promising to respect the results of December\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

Appearing on national television, Maduro inked an agreement, explaining \u201cit is not a protocol signature, given as part of an election campaign, it is a commitment to respect and ensure respect for the popular will in the parliamentary elections,\u201d using the name of L\u00f3pez\u2019s party indirectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever wins, won and whoever loses, lost, by a vote, more or less and ready… we will be the first to say ‘Amen, the people decided,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The document has four key points, among which are vows to \u201cact with strict respect for democracy, peace in the country and the Constitution of Venezuela and to abide by the guidelines issued by the CNE as the only legitimate power of the state and legally competent power to referee in the elections as the ultimate expression of popular sovereignty.\u201d Maduro also announced that from Thursday, the document will be taken around to public places so all Venezuelans can \u201csign for peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Torrealba, the executive secretary of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition, dismissed Maduro\u2019s challenge, branding the president a \u201ccomedian\u201d and saying the document was not serious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of agreement to respect results can be signed by someone who has already said they going to win \u2018by any means\u2019?\u201d he declared, calling for more international observers to oversee the vote.<\/p>\n

Maduro is already under pressure amid widespread product shortages as oil prices decline and the economy continues to contract. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast a 10-percent contraction in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year and the country already registers one of the highest inflation rates in the world \u2014 159 percent.<\/p>\n

The government also railed against ongoing attacks to the country\u2019s electricity grid yesterday, stating that installations had been attacked 18 times in the last month alone. The opposition claims that the government\u2019s \u201cinefficient\u201d management of the industry has caused power outages, though Maduro\u2019s administration argues that the attacks are \u201csabotage.\u201d<\/p>\n

@URLgoeshere<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published in the Buenos Aires Herald<\/span><\/a><\/span>, on Wednesday, October 28, 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Link: http:\/\/www.buenosairesherald.com\/<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuelan president cites \u2018emergency\u2019 and \u2018coup\u2019 plot as developments pile weight on government with key parliamentary elections on the horizon. CARACAS \u2014 Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro called on his supporters yesterday to prepare an \u201canti-coup\u201d plan to ensure the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) wins the crucial upcoming parliamentary elections on December 6, as new developments pile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,612,37,100,562,274],"tags":[622,515,620,429,618,617,238,627,625,225,475,619,43,567,621,624,616,277,357,623,614,626,613,615,570,525,115],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buenos-aires-herald","category-chavismo","category-journalism","category-latin-america","category-leopoldo-lopez","category-venezuela","tag-attorney-general","tag-buenos-aires-herald","tag-cne","tag-constitution","tag-coup","tag-december-6","tag-elections","tag-emergency","tag-franklin-nieves","tag-gdp","tag-imf","tag-jesus-torrealba","tag-journalism-2","tag-leopoldo-lopez","tag-luisa-ortega","tag-miami","tag-mud","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-opposition","tag-popular-will","tag-pressure","tag-prosecutor","tag-psuv","tag-rhetoric","tag-trial","tag-united-states","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}