Post date: Jan 05, 2014 9:37:53 PM
A government publication listing international travel destinations for Venezuelan opposition members signals next round of political fight.
CARACAS, VENEZUELA (JANUARY 5, 2014) (VTV) - Venezuela's politicians are at each other's throats after the government published a list of foreign trips enjoyed by opposition leaders during the Christmas and New Year holidays, saying it proved they don't love their country.
Speaking at the 2014 opening session of the National Assembly Sunday (January 5) Diosdado Cabello,Venezuela's Parliamentary President Sunday (January 5) berated right wing politicians for traveling toItaly and Rome."I find that that sectors of the right were traveling, that they went to the Vatican with a letter because they are going to ask the Pope to make it so that the 31st and the 24th be days that one who works is committing a mortal sin - because we worked! They didn't! They are on vacation," he said. "A political person should be counted on."
Many in the opposition were outraged by the publication of the list, which named 27 people, almost all of them opposition politicians, their identity card number, where they spent the holidays, and the date on which they left Venezuela.
It said, for example, that two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles went to Aruba, setting off on Dec. 22, while others flew to locations that also included New York, Madrid and Sao Paulo.
Tweeting a picture of Caracas' Avila mountain and the display of his cellphone early on Friday to show he was now back home, Capriles mocked President Nicolas Maduro's government.
The government says its list proves opposition leaders are a wealthy elite who are out of touch with the poor.
"The Interior Ministry called me to say that it was going to convene a meeting with the mayors of the opposition to talk about security and no one was there," said Cabello.
The opposition says such attacks are a strategy Maduro inherited from Chavez, of seeking to distract voters from day-to-day concerns such as slowing economic growth and annual inflation which hit 56.2 percent last year.
The opposition says Maduro, who narrowly won an election in April after Chavez died from cancer, has only made things worse with short-term, populist measures that included sending troops to occupy an electronics retailer accused of price gouging.
The economy grew by an estimated 1.6 percent in 2013, versus 5.6 percent the year before, and black market dollars now trade at about ten times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars.
Angry opposition supporters demanded trips taken by senior "Chavista" politicians and their families also be made public.
At nationwide local elections last month, the PSUV and its allies took 10 percentage points more votes than opposition parties, although the opposition won 75 mayoralties, versus the 51 they held before, and chalked up wins in the biggest cities.
Maduro accuses his rivals of being backed by shady "speculators" and U.S.-based financiers who are conspiring to discredit his policies and bring down his government.
Information Minister Delcy Rodriguez, who published the list of foreign trips on Twitter, accused opposition leaders of being work-shy and of traveling abroad at every opportunity.