Venezuela’s oppo launches shutdown

CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro’s adversaries launched a two-day national strike on 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 dawn on Wednesday, neighbours gathered in some parts of Caracas to block roads with rubbish, stones and tape, while corner cafes remained shut.

There was still, however, a trickle of people on their way to work. “We need to paralyse the whole country,” said Flor Lanz, 68, standing with a group of women blocking the entrance to a freeway in east Caracas with rope and iron sheets.

“I’m staying here for 48 hours. It’s the only way to show we are not with Maduro. They are few, but they have the weapons and the money,” added decorator Cletsi Xavier, 45, beside her.

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.