Via the Associated Press...
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's increasingly embattled president called Monday for a new constitution as an intensifying protest movement entered a second month with clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators.
After hundreds of thousands took to the streets again to call for his ouster, President Nicolas Maduro announced that he was calling for a citizens assembly and a new constitution for the economically flailing South American nation. He said the move was needed to restore peace and stop his political opponents from trying to carry out a coup.
Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that Maduro was seeking to further erode Venezuela's constitutional order. Maduro was expected to later give more details about his plan, which is likely to ratchet up tensions even more in a country already on edge.
Many people expect the socialist administration to give itself the power to pick a majority of delegates to a constitutional convention. Maduro could then use the writing of a new constitution as an excuse to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and presidential elections that were to be held in 2018, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.
Polling has suggested the socialists would lose both those elections badly. Opposition leaders have pledged to put top government officials in jail if they win power.
If the constitutional process goes forward, opposition leaders will need to focus on getting at least some sympathetic figures included in the citizens assembly. That could distract them from the drumbeat of near daily street protests that they have managed to keep up for weeks.
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