Venezuelan opposition calls for more protests

Caracas, May 29 (IANS) The Venezuelan opposition has called to scale up the ongoing protests against President Nicolas Maduro's government, claiming that June will be a definitive month, and announced that the fundamental objective will be to block the Constituent Assembly.

"It is very important that the country knows that the Democratic Unity will take up June as a definitive month," the vice-president of the National Assembly, Freddy Guevara, said on Sunday on behalf of the opposition alliance, Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), and stressed that the Venezuelan people "have already spent 58 days on the streets".

"June is a key month in which the Venezuelan people will demonstrate their organisation, their conviction and their commitment to a free Venezuela through a process of increasing the pressure against the dictatorship significantly," he added.

Guevara questioned the Constituent Assembly, which Maduro's government promotes as a way out of the country's crisis, and warned that if "this fraud is allowed to be established, Venezuela will be lost."

"Therefore, we have decided to take this up as a fundamental objective, not only of the Unity but of all the people of Venezuela, to prevent that fraudulent process in the country," he said.

He urged the people to stay in the streets "despite repression, tiredness or hopelessness".

Venezuela has been facing protests by both the government and the opposition for two months, some of which have resulted in violence, leaving at least 59 dead, according to figures from the Prosecutor's Office.