Caracas: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro ordered the security forces to ensure the swearing-in of a new opposition-dominated legislature passes off peacefully Tuesday, after calls for rallies raised fears of unrest.
Maduro said in a televised address that he had given "express orders" to the interior ministry "to take measures to ensure the National Assembly is invested peacefully."
The Socialist leader's opponents and loyalists alike have called on their supporters to rally at the National Assembly on Tuesday as an opposition majority takes over for the first time in 17 years.
That raised tensions in the oil-rich, crisis-hit country, where street violence sparked by anti-government protests left 43 people dead in 2014.
The opposition coalition MUD won a two-thirds majority in the assembly in elections on December 6, for the first time since 1999, when late socialist president Hugo Chavez came to power.
His successor, Maduro, has taken judicial steps to reduce that majority but the opposition has defiantly vowed to take up all its seats in the assembly, setting up a tense standoff.
Maduro said authorities had met on Monday with opposition leaders to coordinate safety measures so that demonstrators "can go out, sing their songs and chant their slogans with enough space so that access to the National Assembly is not obstructed."
His speech appeared calculated to calm tensions but Maduro maintained his stern line against the opposition, which has threatened to use its majority to try to remove him from office.
AFP
