VENEZUELA: Opposition leader Henrique Capriles likens President Nicolas Maduro's government to the 'Titanic', refers to it as a 'dying government'

Record ID: 567074

  • Title: VENEZUELA: Opposition leader Henrique Capriles likens President Nicolas Maduro's government to the 'Titanic', refers to it as a 'dying government'
  • Date: 25th February 2014
  • Summary: CAPRILES SHOWING A NEWSPAPER
  • Embargoed: 12th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2AXRYONU71TLRWOD9EU1S6F46
  • Story Text: Venezuela's opposition leader Henrique Capriles, 41, spurned an invitation to meet President Nicolas Maduro on Monday (February 24) as part of a gathering of mayors and governors that some had hoped would open up communications between both sides.

    "I am not going to a meeting with the federal council to help [Maduro] save face," Capriles told reporters. "I'm not going to be like the orchestra on the Titanic. I am not the musician, the boat is sinking, and I am the one who is playing the music? No sir, Nicolas, you are not going to use me."
    Capriles and other opposition leaders are demanding that the government release imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez and about a dozen jailed student demonstrators.
    They also want Maduro to disarm pro-government gangs and address national issues ranging from crime to shortages of basic goods. Hardline student protesters, though, are demanding that Maduro step down, less than a year into his term.

    "This is a dying government you are looking at, and outside the country they call this a genocide. As we said Saturday, an error in history," Capriles said, though Maduro has said on state television that the protests have unified "Chavismo".

    "Now there will be a fired up population which will move everything forward, everything. We have been saying that for a while and no one is interested in the conflict, I am not interested. I am not promoting and I am not encouraging it, just the opposite, because I know the cost for Venezuela will be quite large," Capriles said.
    Maduro, a 51-year-old former union activist who has made preserving Chavez's legacy the centrepiece of his rule, accuses opponents of planning a coup backed by Washington.
    Anti-government demonstrators put up barricades and set fire to trash across the country on Monday despite calls from within the opposition to rein in protests that have led to 13 deaths in Venezuela's worst unrest for a decade. Barricades continued in Tachira throughout the day, despite a death that occurred during the morning when a man fell from his second-storey apartment after being hit by a bullet from a nearby protest.
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