CARACAS—Seven protests against Venezuela’s socialist government were planned in Caracas on Thursday, one for each of the Supreme Court judges who passed a ruling last week taking control of the country’s opposition-led congress in what demonstrators said was a lurch toward dictatorship.
While the widely condemned decision was quickly overturned, it has given the country’s disparate opposition a new impetus against a leftist government it blames for the country’s social and economic collapse.
Protesters were assembling at seven designated points in capital city Caracas to march to a major highway. This is likely to lead to clashes with security forces, something that has often happened in Venezuela.
“The objective is to put the magistrates on trial (and) get the government to publish an electoral timetable,” opposition lawmaker Stalin Gonzalez told Caracas-based Union Radio. “This country has changed and wants to get out of the crisis.”
The opposition’s primary demand now is to hold the next presidential election before its scheduled date at the end of 2018 to push out Socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
