Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro staged sit-ins and blocked roads across the nation on Monday to press for elections, sparking new unrest and a death in the border state of Tachira.
Luis Alviarez, 18, was killed during protests in the volatile western state, according to the state ombudsman’s office, bringing to at least 39 the number of people killed since April 1.
Opposition supporters wave Venezuelan flags as they block a highway during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela on May 15, 2017. /VCG Photo
Demonstrators have been on the streets daily to demand elections, freedom for jailed activists, foreign humanitarian aid to offset an economic crisis, and autonomy for the opposition-controlled legislature.
Maduro accuses the protesters of seeking a violent coup.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro holds up a book of the country's constitution as he speaks during a national TV broadcast in Caracas on March 9, 2015. /VCG Photo
The current wave of protests, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on some days, has drawn greater support from the poor, who backed late leader Hugo Chavez massively but have soured on Maduro, his successor, and suffered the most from four years of recession. But the main protests have still been in middle-class areas.
Maduro, 54, who narrowly won the election in 2013 after Chavez's death, says he is the victim of an international right-wing conspiracy that has already brought down leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years.
Venezuelan opposition activists block an avenue in Caracas during an anti-government protest on May 15, 2017. /VCG Photo
The center-right opposition blames socialist leader Maduro for an economic crisis that has caused severe shortages of food and medicine.
"My father died because of a lack of medicine. There is no food and when you do find some, it is very expensive," said demonstrator Katty Biagioni.
Authorities thwarted an opposition push for a referendum last year and have also delayed state gubernatorial elections. But Maduro vowed at the weekend that the next presidential election, due in late 2018, would go ahead.
(Source: Reuters, AFP)
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