Venezuela Opposition Leader Loses Assembly Seat
A prominent Venezuelan opposition lawmaker has been stripped of her seat after she raised the country's political crisis at a meeting of a regional body, a senior official said Monday.
National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello said Maria Corina Machado had forfeited her seat by addressing a session of the Organization of American States as a guest of Panama's delegation.
"She stopped being a deputy," said Cabello, who is considered the second most powerful politician in Venezuela after President Nicolas Maduro.
"We are putting out instructions that from this moment Mrs Machado cannot enter as a deputy at least during this electoral period," he warned.
The action in the government-dominated assembly comes amid a broadening crackdown on opposition leaders who have supported a wave of street protests against the leftist government.
At least 31 people have been killed since the protests began February 4.
Two mayors were arrested last week and a prominent opposition leader has been jailed for more than a month for allegedly inciting violence, which the government regards as a conspiracy to overthrow Maduro.
Prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into Machado, accusing her of inciting violence, terrorism and homicide.
"What does it mean that she is no longer a deputy?" Cabello said.
"She doesn't have parliamentary immunity, she doesn't have access to the assembly, she can be investigated directly for all the things that have been happening."
"She can be arrested at any moment without previous notification of anybody."
Cabello said he based his action on an article in the Venezuelan constitution stipulating that deputies "cannot accept or exercise public offices without losing their investiture, except in teaching, academic, accidental or support activities."
Venezuela's neighbor Panama last week accredited Machado to its delegation at the Washington-based OAS so she could address the regional body on the situation in her homeland.
But Venezuela and its allies in the OAS succeeded first in closing the session to the press and then rejected any debate on the crisis, Maduro's most serious since taking office in April 2013 after the death of the late Hugo Chavez.
On her Twitter account, Machado, who was in Lima on Monday, said she was "accidentally accredited" by Panama.
"That allowed me to remain in the private session and speak from its seat. Thanks to the Panamanians," she wrote.
Source: Agence France Presse
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