Dramatic week ahead for Venezuela as opposition plans strike and vote boycott
Caracas — Venezuela’s angry opposition is pushing for a boycott of an upcoming vote that it dismisses as a ploy by President Nicolas Maduro to cling to power. Ahead of next Sunday’s election for a more than 500-member assembly to rewrite the constitution and give the president more power, the opposition also plans a general strike — the second in weeks — on Wednesday and Thursday and a big protest march on Friday. It all makes for a dramatic week in the opposition’s dogged drive to unseat the socialist Maduro, whom it blames for an acute economic crisis marked by shortages of food, medicine and such basics as diapers, soap and toilet paper. Four months of almost daily street protests in the oil-rich Opec member have left 103 people dead. "Let them lock us all up. The fight must move forward," said Freddy Guevara, the deputy speaker of the opposition-controlled congress. "The people of Venezuela must fuel the general strike. They must come to Caracas and help us prepare for the civic...
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