Opposition

In a presentation to the Venezuelan National Assembly (AN) on Wednesday, former Vice-President José Vicente Rangel detailed the results of his ongoing investigations into plots to assassinate President Hugo Chávez and overthrow the government.

Students opposed to the Chavez government fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers, blockaded streets using seized university buses, and ransacked sections of the Andean town of Mérida on Thursday and Friday, to protest crime and insecurity in the city.

National Electoral Council (CNE) member Germán Yépez confirmed Tuesday that the CNE will respect a ruling by the government’s top anti-corruption watch dog, Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian, disqualifying nearly 400 people who areaccused of corruption from running in the upcoming regional elections in November.

A controversy has broken out inside Venezuela’s largest opposition party, A New Era (UNT), over a lack of democracy in the party’s internal candidate selection process for the upcoming elections. UNT President Omar Barboza, announced that the party had selected candidates for 314 of Venezuela’s 335 municipalities by “consensus.”

The libertarian, U.S.-based Cato Institute awarded the $500,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to Venezuelan opposition student leader Yon Goicoechea for his leadership in recent student protests. Critics say the award is a new source of opposition funding.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced the presence of Colombian paramilitary groups operating in Venezuela with United States government support on his weekly Sunday talk show “Aló Presidente.”

Venezuelan Telecom Minister Jesse Chacon presented a video revealing the opposition strategy of destabilization for Sunday's referendum at a press conference on Thursday. In the video, opposition leaders call on their supporters to reject the results of the referendum.

Neighbors, friends and family members of young worker and supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, José Anibal Oliveros Yépez, who was murdered by a radical opposition group in the regional city of Valencia on Monday, have express profound rage and indignation at what occurred explaining that his body was spat on and kicked by his killers, "as if he were and animal."

Violent clashes erupted between pro-government and opposition student groups on Venezuela's Central University (UCV) campus Wednesday after a march of approximately 10,000 opposition students against proposed constitutional reforms returned to the campus.

Venezuela’s opposition kicked off their campaign today against the Venezuelan Constitutional Reform, in a demonstration of thousands on Victoria Avenue in Caracas.