New Venezuela assembly sacks government critic Luisa Ortega

[Bob The Knob]

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-40838378[/url]
[quote]Venezuela's new constituent assembly has voted to sack top prosecutor Luisa Ortega, during its first day of work.

Ms Ortega, a vocal critic of left-wing President Nicolás Maduro, had opposed the assembly's inauguration on Friday, citing allegations of voting fraud.

Security forces have surrounded her office in the capital Caracas, in what she has called a "siege".

Mr Maduro says the new body is needed to bring peace after months of protests sparked by economic hardship.

On Saturday the assembly - which is dominated by government supporters - decided to remove Ms Ortega from office in a unanimous vote.[/quote]

[OmniConsUme]

Yep Dictator alright.

[elix]

Well, this is totally reassuring and not at all predictable. :downs:

Sanction Maduro and the entire assembly and their families. Seize their foreign assets. The outside pressure needs to continue to build.

[fnox]

I would like to paint the whole picture here. While the government is awful and must be removed as soon as possible, the opposition also needs to have an immediate change in leadership. The National Assembly and the MUD should have stood behind Luisa Ortega Dias, as she is (or, I guess was) the highest ranking dissident in the Venezuelan government. They should have taken advantage of the pull she has with ideological Chavistas to form a coalition government ASAP. They didn't, and instead, the opposition is now focusing on the prospect of having regional elections. They want regional elections, that will be overseen by an Electoral Council that was just found to be guilty of the largest case of electoral fraud in history.

We need the international community to start demanding more of the opposition. We, the Venezuelan people, need them to act, we need them to respect the 16th of July plebiscite where 7.5 million Venezuelans voted in favour of the establishment of a transitional government. We cannot have elections in a dictatorship; we cannot trust the arbiter, so we shouldn't play that game. Anything that doesn't involve the immediate ousting of Nicolas Maduro is against the will of the people.