by Maria Isabel Sanchez
Agence France-Presse
CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s opposition vowed no letup Tuesday in its bid to remove leftist President Nicolas Maduro from power even as more protesters were shot dead in an increasingly violent political crisis.
Maduro’s center-right rivals planned to push on with a wave of street protests that have seen 26 people killed this month in clashes involving protesters and security forces.
In the latest unrest, public prosecutors said a 23-year-old man died from being shot in the head with a shotgun in overnight protests in northwestern Lara state. Prosecutors did not immediately say who was believed to have been responsible.
The opposition blames Maduro for shortages of food, medicine and other essentials in the oil-rich country.
Maduro says the crisis stems from what he calls a United States-backed capitalist conspiracy.
He has resisted more than a year of political efforts to vote him out of office, though he said over the weekend that he was willing to hold regional elections.
With few options left to get rid of him before the end of his term in late 2018, the opposition is urging all-out street rallies to push for elections.
“Let us not surrender. If we manage to keep up this pressure we will achieve change,” said senior opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara.
“On Wednesday we will return to the streets” for a march in central Caracas to put pressure on state institutions loyal to Maduro, he said.
Opposition ‘reinvigorated’
Falling prices for Venezuela’s crucial oil exports have slashed its revenues, leading to critical shortages and looting.
The courts and electoral authorities have fended off efforts to remove Maduro since an opposition majority took over the National Assembly in January 2016.
But moves by the Supreme Court to seize power from the assembly and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics galvanized the opposition and drew international condemnation.
“The opposition is more unified around the streets and seems to be reinvigorated, while the international community seems unlikely to back down,” said the US-based Eurasia Group consultancy.
Maduro controls nearly all the state institutions and retains military support.
“Key groups remain united around Maduro given high exit costs, which will enable him to remain in power. But that unity is more fragile,” Eurasia Group said in a note last week.
“Mounting pressures from both the streets and the international community have the potential to widen — if not blow open entirely — existing fissures.”
Gunshots at demos
Attorney General Luisa Ortega told a news conference that the latest death toll from this month’s unrest was 26, including four “adolescents.”
The 23-year-old was killed overnight and another man died on Tuesday after being shot in a demo the day before.
Ortega’s department said more than 400 people have been injured and nearly 1,300 arrested.
Three people were killed on Monday in the latest day of nationwide protests.
Government officials said some of Monday’s victims were Maduro supporters.
But state ombudsman Tarek William Saab said that “gunshots rained” against a “peaceful concentration” of government supporters in the western city of Merida.
In Monday’s main march in Caracas, most demonstrators rallied peacefully, but some masked protesters threw stones and clashed with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets.
The opposition has accused Maduro of letting state forces and gangs of armed thugs attack demonstrators.
“These acts of resistance which force the dictator against the wall have very serious cost: deaths and prisoners,” Guevara said.
The government has accused the opposition of fomenting unrest.
“How many more deaths will it take for the opposition extremists to abandon violence as a way of doing politics?” asked Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.