CARACAS, Venezuela – Dressed in white and chanting “this government will fall,” hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters flooded Venezuela’s capital on Thursday to press for an end to socialist leader Nicolás Maduro’s rule.
Protesters streamed into Caracas from the Amazon jungle to the western Andes. The opposition coalition estimated at least one million people took part in rallies to demand a recall referendum against Maduro and decry the deep economic crisis.
“We are going to bring down Maduro!” said Naty Gutiérrez, 53, whose 75-mile drive from Maracay into Caracas took three times longer than usual due to soldiers’ roadblocks.
“We are going to defeat hunger, crime, inflation and corruption. They’ve done nothing in 17 years. Their time is finished,” she added, surrounded by thousands of people waving banners and national flags at one gathering point.
In power since Hugo Chávez’s presidency from 1999, the ruling socialists have hit a low ebb as falling oil prices and a failing state-led economy have left the OPEC nation in turmoil.
Triple-digit inflation, a third year of recession, shortages of basics, and long lines at shops have exasperated many of Venezuela’s 30 million people. The frustration led to a resounding opposition win in a December legislative vote.
Maduro, 53, says the opposition-dubbed “Takeover of Caracas” on Thursday is a front for coup plans, akin to a short-lived 2002 putsch against his mentor Chávez, who died of cancer three years ago. Maduro has failed to replicate his charismatic predecessor’s popular appeal, and his ratings in opinion polls have halved to just over 20 percent.
“I’m ready for everything … we will not allow a coup,” Maduro told supporters late on Wednesday.
ARRESTS, TEARGAS
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.
Extra police and troops were positioned around Caracas, and there were roadblocks on most major routes into the capital from the provinces, with buses being blocked and traffic crawling.
Security forces fired teargas on one highway where buses were stopped but people tried to continue on foot, pro-opposition broadcaster VivoPlay said. Authorities also used teargas to block a group of protesters in Caracas who tried to break onto a motorway, witnesses said.
All they are interested in is staying in power,” said construction worker Luis Palacios, 59, from the poor Caracas neighborhood of Petare. “We want change, we are hungry.”
Dozens of indigenous people marched hundreds of miles from their home state of Amazonas.
Fearing violence, especially given 43 deaths around anti-Maduro protests in 2014, many businesses in the capital closed.
Swearing loyalty to Chávez’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.
“The opposition want to topple the president, but they won’t be able too,” said lawyer and civil servant Adriana Jiménez, 44, at a government rally of several thousand people close to a huge inflatable puppet of Chávez in downtown Caracas.
Like other “Chavista” loyalists, she blamed Venezuela’s ailing economy on an “economic war” by businessmen hiking prices and hoarding goods.
Despite the country’s ills, the opposition has struggled to consolidate support among Chavistas and even its own base.
With a compliant Supreme Court vetoing every major measure that the opposition-controlled congress passes, the opposition wants to activate a plebiscite on Maduro as allowed in the constitution halfway through his term.
But the election board has dragged its feet on the process, making the vote unlikely this year. If such a vote took place in 2017 and Maduro lost, his vice president would take over, keeping the ruling Socialist Party in power, rather than there being a new presidential election.
