Venezuela’s new assembly president promises declaration to dismiss President Maduro from office

Record ID: 163163

  • Title: Venezuela’s new assembly president promises declaration to dismiss President Maduro from office
  • Date: 5th January 2017
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF BORGES SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM WITH A CROWD OUTSIDE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
  • Embargoed: 20th January 2017 19:35
  • Keywords: Venezuela opposition National Assembly Nicolas Maduro Julio Borges
  • Location: CARACAS, VENEZUELA
  • City: CARACAS, VENEZUELA
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Lawmaking,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA0025XT26V7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Shortly after being sworn in as the new president of Venezuela's National Assembly on Thursday (January 5), Julio Borges promised the opposition-led body would vote on and pass a declaration to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office.
    Venezuela's opposition, still smarting from its failure to remove Maduro last year, installed Borges as the new congress head on Thursday. Borges has demanded across-the-board elections and sought military help to end "dictatorship".
    "In the coming days, we will approve by a majority of this National Assembly, a declaration for the dismissal of (President) Nicolas Maduro from his position," Borges said.
    In a renewal of Venezuela's bitter politics after the holiday lull, the ruling Socialist Party responded that the National Assembly was in contempt of the law.
    Maduro forecast its imminent "self-dissolution."
    The opposition coalition won control of the Assembly at the end of 2015 thanks to voter ire at Venezuela's unrelenting economic crisis. But authorities blocked their attempt to oust Maduro via a plebiscite last year.
    That has split the opposition between hardliners who believe civil disobedience is the only way to dislodge Hugo Chavez's unpopular successor, and moderates who fear that could spark bloodshed and backfire in the OPEC member nation with the world's largest oil reserves.
    Julio Borges, a veteran politician and lawyer, tore into the president as he took the post of assembly president. But he backed the moderates' push for solutions at the ballot box given what he deemed Maduro's "abandonment" of responsibilities.
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