Venezuelas treacherous opposition: The tall, former triathlete was surprisingly gaunt and a thick beard covered his familiar clean-shaven face. But his powerful voice still filled the fluorescent-lit room, where his wife grew teary-eyed among some two dozen observers in wooden pews. Lopez denounced the young judge as lacking courage and compared her to a hired assassin. He waved copies of the constitution drafted by the late President Hugo Chavez, and held up a book of the writings of Venezuelas beloved revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar, a distant great uncle of Lopez. His blue blood political heritage and old-money roots make him a natural champion of the Venezuelan elite. Ivy League-educated and accompanied by his equally photogenic wife, a former TV hostess and champion kite-surfer, Lopez comes off as a Venezuelan version of a Kennedy — albeit a stridently conservative one. Of the two factions opposing Venezuelas unsteady administration, Lopez represents the more radical extreme. While others such as opposition heavyweight Henrique Capriles were advocating gradual electoral change, Lopez called hundreds of thousands of supporters into the streets to demand that Maduro resign only months into his six-year term. Violence stemming from the protests left more than 40 people dead, including both Maduro supporters and opponents.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 17:36:41 +0000
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