Venezuela President Maduro to reshuffle cabinet

Opposition legislators pose for a group photo outside the National Assembly building, after attending their swearing-in ceremony, in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016.

Opposition deputies on Tuesday took control of Venezuela’s National Assembly for the first time in 16 years, after winning a landslide victory in last month’s parliamentary elections.

On Tuesday, the National Assembly swore in deputies to 163 of the 167 legislative seats.

Incoming opposition lawmakers are promising to use their new muscle to make sweeping changes, while the socialist party of current President Nicolas Maduro has been equally adamant that the legislature not back Chavez’s revolution. “The people put their trust in us, and we can’t just go home and knit booties to avoid conflict”, the 72-year-old Ramos told reporters.

The Democratic Unity coalition won a two-thirds majority in December’s legislative election by capitalizing on anger over a shrinking economy, soaring prices and chronic product shortages reminiscent of Soviet-bloc economies. It appointed more than a dozen justices to the Supreme Court, which subsequently stripped the opposition of its supermajority by barring the three of its newly elected lawmakers from taking office over alleged election irregularities.

Opposition leaders are pledging to start the year probing allegations of government corruption and pushing for an amnesty law to free jailed government critic Leopoldo Lopez. But, like I said, a lot has happened, many acts of provocation that are created to leave us, the lawmakers of the opposition, standing on a minefield. However, the court has officially suspended the swearing in of four of the 112, following a series of official requests submitted by candidates from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) that call for investigation into potential voting irregularities in several states.

Wielding the gavel for the first time, Ramos appeared to relish his power to cut off rivals’ soliloquies.

Moderates have criticized that strategy and instead advocate pragmatic steps to wrench the oil-dependent economy out of a tailspin marked by triple-digit inflation and the world’s deepest recession.

The president then issued a number of executive orders on Monday, including one stripping the National Assembly of its power to appoint board members to the country’s central bank.

In a nationally televised address Monday night, Maduro rejected USA criticism and said the new assembly “will be installed in peace respecting the constitution, the laws and all public powers”.

The move has galvanized calls from some hardline opposition members to prioritize a challenge to Maduro’s presidency, which it could do, in theory, after he reaches the midpoint of his six-year term in April – should its super majority eventually be formalized. “The Obama administration and other democratically elected governments of the Western Hemisphere have a duty to not only speak out against this flagrant subversion of democracy but also to take action to ensure that this democratic opportunity in Venezuela does not slip away right before our eyes”.

The Venezuelan president warned that Venezuela is facing a “counter-revolutionary crisis”.

Hardline grassroots pro-government groups vowed to take to the streets.