Venezuela Opposition Seeks To Up Pressure On Maduro

CARACAS, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Oct, 2016 ) - Venezuela's opposition moved to ratchet up pressure on embattled President Nicolas Maduro at mass protests on Wednesday, announcing plans for a general strike, a legislative onslaught and a new march.

Opposition leaders called a 12-hour general strike for Friday and vowed to use their legislative majority to declare the leftist leader has "abandoned his post" amid a deepening economic and political crisis.

They said they would deliver that ruling in a march on the presidential palace on November 3. "We are going to notify Nicolas Maduro that the Venezuelan people declare he has abandoned his post," the speaker of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, said to cheers from tens of thousands of protesters in Caracas.

Jesus Torrealba, secretary general of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), also drew thunderous applause when he announced the general strike. "Everyone stay home," he urged Venezuelans fed up with a nearly three-year recession and severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Venezuela is home to the world's largest oil reserves but has plunged into economic crisis due to falling crude prices -- leading to ever louder calls for Maduro to go. Maduro's opponents accuse him of a "coup" after authorities halted their bid for a referendum on removing him from power.

The president -- the political heir to the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) -- says it is the opposition that is trying to stage a coup from its perch in the legislature.