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July 5th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Venezuela’s Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition announced that it will convene a non-binding national plebiscite on whether the country should hold elections for the National Constituent Elections scheduled for July 30. The MUD also announced its intention to organize zero hour protests to take to the streets permanently to make use of all legitimate means of civil disobedience and resistance.
MUD lawmakers who have been denied access to the National Assembly for months, announce their plan to hold a plebiscite on July 16 as an act of civil disobedience.
The Roundtable of Democratic Unity won the absolute majority in Venezuela’s last parliamentary elections and opposes the socialist PSUV’s and the Maduro administration’s attempt to change the constitution. The National Assembly was “suspended” by the PSUV-controlled Supreme Court claiming the lawmakers were in contempt. The Court has since then usurped the functions of the legislative branch of government.
The MUD’s plebiscite known as the “National Agreement on the Constitution” will include questions concerning whether the people “reject or recognize the Constituent Assembly”, “the role demanded of the functionaries and the National Armed Forces in restoring the constitutional order”, and whether the people “back the renovation of public powers, the conformation of a unity government, the holding of free and transparent elections within the constitution”.
In May 2017 the MUD announced that the coalition would boycott the National Constituent Assembly. Proponents of the constitutional reform claim the reform would help consolidate nd institutionalize the gains that were achieved in the “Bolivarian Revolution”. The MUD, other opponents and many independent analysts see the attempt to change the constitution as a means to consolidate an increasingly tyrannical one-party rule that has been and continues to build a colossal, party-controlled, national security apparatus”.
The MUD scheduled the “National Agreement on the Constitution” plebiscite for July 16. National Assembly Vice-President and Popular Will part leader Freddy Guevara descried the plebiscite as an act of civil disobedience. Depending on the result of the poll, the MUD will decide whether it will initiate what it describes as “Zero Hour Mobilizations”.
The MUD announced that it, depending on the outcome of the plebiscite, would take to the streets permanently, and make use of all of the mechanisms of protest simultaneously to achieve change. The announcement came as Venezuela is experiencing a spiral of violence, with ever more brutal and deadly police crackdowns as well as ever more radical demonstrations. At least 99 people, protesters as well as security personnel, have lost their lives since the demonstrations began on April 4.
The PSUV and the Maduro administration denounce the MUD-organized plebiscite as illegitimate because it will be held without the participation of the also PSUV-dominated National Electoral Council (CNE). The PSUV also criticized the MUD for not yet having provided key details about how e on July 16 will be organized and monitored.
Caracas Mayor and Socialist Party (PSUV) leader Jorge Rodriguez denounced the plebiscite as unconstitutional saying: “They [MUD]are convening a lie for July 16, a false plebiscite, without it being governed by the branch of public power established in the constitution, which is the Venezuelan Electoral Branch”.
The PSUV and the administration argue that Articles 71-74 of Venezuela’s constitution do allow for binding referenda to approve or revoke laws, recall elected officials, and consult the population on “issues of transcendental national importance”, but that the Magna Carta does not contain provisions for holding non-binding plebiscites organized independently of the CNE.
The MUD, for its part, announced that it considers the plebiscite as “an act of civil disobedience”, organized by lawmakers and parties who won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections, whose legislative rights and functions were usurped by the Supreme Court and by extension, by the PSUV. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that Article 350 of Venezuela’s Constitution explicitly guarantees the right to resist “any regime that infringes on democratic values of human rights”.
CH/L – nsnbc 05.07.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/07/05/zero-hour-in-venezuela-mud-to-hold-plebiscite-on-constituent-assembly-as-act-of-civil-disobedience/
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