Venezuela Opposition Vows 'massive' Protests For Recall

CARACAS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News -22nd Sep,2016) - Venezuela's opposition vowed Thursday to stage "overwhelming, forceful" protests after authorities quashed its hopes of ousting President Nicolas Maduro's government in a recall referendum.

The Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), the center-right opposition coalition, said Venezuelans fed up with a disastrous economic crisis would not accept the authorities' ruling that a recall can only be held next year -- too late to trigger new elections.

"They are violating Venezuelans' right to remove the president via the constitutional path of a referendum. What is coming now is a massive, peaceful, overwhelming, forceful protest," said MUD spokesman Jesus Torrealba.

The warning came a day after the National Electoral Council (CNE) said that the referendum the opposition has spent months working for could only be held "in the middle of the first quarter of 2017.

" The timing is the catch.

Polls indicate eight in 10 Venezuelans want a change in government. But if Maduro loses a recall vote after January 10 -- four years into his six-year term -- he will simply be replaced by his hand-picked vice president.

And the leftist "revolution" launched in 1999 by late president Hugo Chavez will in that case continue until at least 2019. Torrealba said the opposition would soon announce an updated strategy for a "legal path" to oust Maduro's government, which it blames for severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.