Venezuela's government is intensifying its crackdown on critics of President Nicolas Maduro, ordering investigations into prominent opposition leaders as well as the detention of the husband of the country's former chief prosecutor.
Former prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz said in a post on her Twitter account that secret police were raiding the family's home in Caracas. The Supreme Court later ordered the arrest of her husband, German Ferrer, accusing him of leading an extortion ring out of the prosecutor's office.
"It's revenge for fighting against the totalitarianism that exists in Venezuela," she wrote, blaming the raid on Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, a high-ranking socialist party official who filed the suit against her husband. The former prosecutor had been the highest-ranking member of Maduro's administration to break ranks with the government before she was deposed this month by a newly installed constitutional assembly. She has since fled and gone into hiding.
Meanwhile, a so-called truth commission established by the president's constitutional assembly announced investigations into Julio Borges, president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, and Freddy Guevara, the assembly's vice president, claiming that they promoted violent anti-government protests that have left more than 100 people dead.
The Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International said 40 of 77 opposition mayors have been threatened or punished by the government since 2013, with some removed and jailed, some having their powers curtailed and some barred from leaving the country.
For five months, the South American nation, which has the world's largest crude-oil reserves, has been rocked by violent anti-government demonstrations. Maduro has attempted to consolidate power as the economy failed and his approval ratings hit record lows. Last month, he installed the 545-delegate constitutional assembly, which supersedes all other government branches and is rewriting Venezuela's constitution. While the opposition warns of an impending dictatorship, most parties agreed to participate in regional elections scheduled this year, fearing that a boycott could cede even more power to Maduro.
Since the constitutional assembly's installation, the opposition coalition party ticket has been banned in seven states entirely, while the vote -- now set for October -- has been brought forward by two months.
As Maduro moves to disenfranchise opponents, his economy is crumbling with triple-digit inflation. Oil prices are half what they were three years ago, and crude output has dwindled in a country that gets 95 percent of its export revenue from that resource. Foreign reserves are at a 15-year low of about $10 billion -- and the nation and state oil company known as PDVSA are due to pay about $13 billion in debt before the end of 2018.
Information for this article was contributed by Nathan Crooks of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 08/18/2017