Venezuelan authorities on Friday banned a top opposition leader from public office for 15 years, the latest move in an increasingly tense power struggle in the crisis-hit country.
Miranda state Governor Henrique Capriles was one of the leaders of mass demonstrations this week against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that led to clashes with police. One protester died.
Venezuelan Comptroller General Manuel Galindo imposed a “sanction of disqualification from exercising public office for a period of 15 years,” his office said in a ruling made public by Capriles himself.
Photo: Reuters
The ruling said the sanction was due to “administrative irregularities” by Capriles in his post as governor of the northern state of Miranda.
Capriles rejected the move and insisted he would retain his post as governor, branding Maduro a dictator.
“The only one who is disqualified in this country is Nicolas Maduro. They can stick their disqualification where the sun don’t shine,” he told a news conference. “If the dictatorship is squealing, it is a sign that we are making progress.”
The agency’s move effectively bans 44-year-old Capriles from running against Maduro in a general election due next year.
If effective, it would remove from the political ring one of the most prominent contenders in the center-right opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition, which is pushing to remove Maduro from office.
Capriles’ allies vowed to push ahead with further protests planned for yesterday.
“The dictatorship wants to choose its opposition. Shall we let it? No. Tomorrow we continue,” Venezuelan Legislator Freddy Guevara said on Twitter.
Capriles branded Friday’s ban as part of what the opposition alleges is a “coup” by allies of Maduro, who is resisting opposition calls for a vote on removing him from power.
“This is all part and package of the internal coup,” Capriles said on Twitter, branding the government a “corrupt drug-trafficking leadership.”
Capriles lost narrowly in the 2013 election that brought Maduro to the presidency after the death of his mentor, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez — father of the nation’s “socialist revolution.”
After this week’s demonstrations, Maduro dismissed Capriles as “politically finished.”
The political crisis last week intensified when the Venezuelan Supreme Court issued rulings curbing the powers of the opposition-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly.
The court has consistently ruled in Maduro’s favor since the opposition majority took its seats in the legislature in January last year. It drew international criticism for last week’s rulings, which seized the assembly’s powers and revoked lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.
The court reversed the rulings days later, but the opposition intensified its protests, prompting police to fire tear gas.
Capriles can appeal against his sanction within two weeks to the comptroller and within six months to the Supreme Court.
A 19-year-old protester was shot dead during protests on Thursday, the third consecutive day of violence.
Public prosecutors said that they would charge a policeman over the protester’s killing.
The wave of protests has revived fears of broader unrest in Venezuela, where 43 people were killed during riots in 2014.
The country has undergone three attempted military coups since 1992.
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