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Caracas: Venezuela's opposition Friday vowed speeded-up moves to oust President Nicolas Maduro after he defied lawmakers by decreeing a state of economic emergency through the crisis-hit country's high court.
The maneuvers intensified a political standoff that has raised fears of unrest and deepening economic suffering in the oil-rich, violence-plagued South American state.
The Supreme Court on Thursday overruled opposition from lawmakers by approving Maduro's decree to place the country in a 60-day state of economic emergency.
Opposition lawmakers reacted with outrage, accusing Maduro of expanding economic policies that they say are ruining the country.
"In the next few days we will have to present a concrete proposal for the departure of that national disgrace that is the government," the opposition leader of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos, told a news conference Friday.
The decree gives Maduro's administration special temporary powers to take over private companies' resources and impose currency controls among other measures.
Maduro said he would announce the first measures in the coming days.
"The Supreme Court of Justice has spoken, its word is holy and must be respected by all parts of society and all institutions," he said on television.
Ramos and other leaders in the opposition MUD coalition had already promised to devise a way within six months to oust Maduro, possibly through a new constitution or a referendum, before his current mandate expires in 2019.
"Nobody doubts now that that six-month timeframe is too long," Ramos said Friday.
"It is not we who impose the timing, it is the needs of the country."
It is not clear however how the opposition might overcome resistance from the court, which critics say is packed with Maduro's supporters.
- Economic 'catastrophe' -
Venezuela has the world's largest known oil reserves but has suffered as crude prices have fallen sharply, slashing the revenues that the government had used to fund social welfare programs.
Citizens are suffering shortages of basics such as toilet paper and cooking oil.
Lawmakers on Thursday urged Maduro to launch an international appeal for "humanitarian aid" to help stave off the threat of famine posed by the shortages.
Announcing the decree in mid-January, Maduro admitted Venezuela was in a "catastrophic" economic state, but said his emergency plan would allow the government to shore up its health, housing, education and food services.
Analysts say the political standoff threatens to worsen the hardship that drove voters to hand the opposition a landslide election victory in December.
"The problem Venezuela has is that it lacks a mediator to settle the conflict of power, which complicates the situation even further," said Asdrubal Oliveros, head of analysis firm Ecoanalitica.
Experts have warned of the risk of a repeat of violent street clashes that left 43 people dead in 2014.
Venezuela's inflation rate is among the highest in the world at over 140 percent, as exchange rate chaos wreaks havoc on supply and demand in the import-dependent country.
- Political deadlock -
In a worsening recession, Venezuela has been seized by a political deadlock since the opposition took majority control of the assembly at the start of January.
Maduro has chipped away at the opposition's majority through challenges in the Supreme Court.
Ramos on Friday accused the government of "doing all it can to provoke a coup" against it but insisted the opposition would only oust him by constitutional means.
He sowed doubts about Maduro's level of support.
"It is no secret, and Maduro knows it, that there is a movement growing and getting stronger within the government itself among influential people who want to ask Maduro to quit as the lesser of two evils," Ramos said.
AFP
