Skip to main content
Venezuela: Maduro stays defiant as rightwingers urge strikes

VENEZUELA’S right-wing opposition launched a 48-hour “civic strike” yesterday, calling on workers to stay at home in its latest campaign to derail plans to convene a new constituent assembly.

President Nicolas Maduro has confirmed that Sunday’s elections will go ahead to choose the members of the assembly, despite the Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition’s three-month campaign of rioting which has led to hundreds of deaths.

The CTV union federation, which supported the 2002 coup against late president Hugo Chavez, said its 333,000 members would join the strike.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
THE RESOLVE UNALTERED: Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, center, makes a statement flanked by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, right, and National Assembly President, Jorge Rodriguez, at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela on Wednesday
Features / 16 January 2026
16 January 2026

International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

Demonstrators protest outside of the White House in Washington, November 15, 2025
Latin America / 18 November 2025
18 November 2025

The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE