© WikimediaMaduro Carabobo
The pro-American wing of the Venezuelan parliament held an extraordinary session in which the board decided to initiate impeachment procedures against president Maduro,
even while not being grounded in a constitutional procedure.BackgroundSeveral district courts had not recognized the validity of Venezuelan voter signatures in support of a referendum to impeach President Nicolas Maduro collected in the first phase, as there were reports of apparent irregularities in the collection process.
Included in the petition signatures were the deceased, those too young to vote, as well as forged signatures. In several districts, the signatories were asked to confirm their vote, and a certain percentage of these were not confirmed. Signatures of many people were therefore forged to achieve an inflated number, however the board of the extraordinary session decided to use this to begin proceedings anyway.
The second stage of the the referendum preparations, which was supposed to start today, will be postponed indefinitely until the initiators correct violations made in the course of the first stage - the collection of signatures of 1% and the re-organization of the signature collecting process.However, this would have greatly changed the plans of the opposition, as they need to have time to organize a referendum by January 10th, 2017. Otherwise, Nicolas Maduro will designate the vice president .
Meanwhile, the plans of the opposition became known thanks in part to the testimony of terrorist José Vicente Garcia, that there was a plan to detonate a bomb during the march of the opposition to discredit the government. He noted among other things that there was a planned seizure of military units and attacks on the army and the government, including the use of weapons. In the period from the 26th to 28th of October, the phase associated with "general" strike was to begin, on the 31st a new march, perhaps again with attempts of terrorist attacks; November 3rd was planned as the launch of the referendum procedure and the prosecution of Maduro, supposedly for dereliction of duty and obstruction of consent, the 9th would see the blocking of roads, and the 10th was to begin the main phase of the revolution.
Comment: More on Venezuela impeachment process: Venezuela's Congress attempting coup accuses President Maduro of staging 'coup' by axing recall referendum
Update: Venezuelan opposition-led legislature votes to begin political trial against President Maduro