Venezuelan Lawmakers Vote to Put President Nicolás Maduro on Trial - NY Times

Fuente: European Pressphoto Agency

Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly voted on Tuesday to put President Nicolás Maduro on political trial, but the legislature’s dwindling power means the decision will likely have no practical effect.

The vote was an attempt to put new pressure on Mr. Maduro a day before the opposition planned a show of force on the streets.

The legislature charged Mr. Maduro with abandoning the presidency and carrying out a coup against the Constitution.

“Let him respond for the actions that have destroyed, broken, denied the right to choose in a democracy,” said Julio Borges, the leader of the Assembly’s opposition bloc.

In response to the vote, Edwin Rojas, a lawmaker from Mr. Maduro’s Socialist Party, said, “This is a cheap copy of impeachment.” Referring to the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, he added, “We are not Brazil.”

Venezuela’s political turmoil has grown more intractable by the day, with the opposition reacting furiously to a decision by the Electoral Council last week that blocked a drive for a referendum to recall Mr. Maduro.

Despite winning control of the Assembly in elections in December, the opposition has been effectively sidelined by a series of rulings in the courts, which are controlled by Mr. Maduro’s leftist government.

Any vote in the legislature against Mr. Maduro is likely to be rejected by the courts.

The referendum had been seen as the most effective legal avenue to challenge Mr. Maduro’s increasingly autocratic rule, which many Venezuelans blame for the collapsing economy.

Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans would vote to remove him.

Addressing a crowd outside the presidential palace on Tuesday, Mr. Maduro disregarded the Assembly vote. Instead, he blamed President Obama for Venezuela’s political standoff.

“These attacks from the right are an attack by Obama because he is close to leaving,” Mr. Maduro said.

He also invited the opposition president of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, to meet with him and other members of the government.

As he spoke, the crowd chanted, “Dissolve the Assembly!”

Mr. Maduro had just returned from a five-day trip overseas, where he met on Monday with Pope Francis and early Tuesday with the incoming secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres.

The Vatican has been attempting since May to mediate between Venezuela’s government and the opposition, and it appeared to have made a breakthrough on Monday, when the pope’s special envoy to Venezuela, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, said both sides would begin a dialogue on Sunday.

But leading opposition figures said they would not take part in the session, suggesting instead that the government wanted to buy time by agreeing to discussions.

“In a possible dialogue, the opposition has nothing to offer, only to demand,” Mr. Ramos said.

As the crisis mounted, the army came down squarely in support of Mr. Maduro. A statement signed by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López declared that the opposition’s “true purpose” is create “chaos and anarchy” to overthrow Mr. Maduro, “to whom we reiterate our unconditional loyalty and unbreakable commitment.”