Opposition

The libertarian, U.S.-based Cato Institute awarded the $500,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to Venezuelan opposition student leader Yon Goicoechea for his leadership in recent student protests. Critics say the award is a new source of opposition funding.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced the presence of Colombian paramilitary groups operating in Venezuela with United States government support on his weekly Sunday talk show “Aló Presidente.”

Venezuelan Telecom Minister Jesse Chacon presented a video revealing the opposition strategy of destabilization for Sunday's referendum at a press conference on Thursday. In the video, opposition leaders call on their supporters to reject the results of the referendum.

Neighbors, friends and family members of young worker and supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, José Anibal Oliveros Yépez, who was murdered by a radical opposition group in the regional city of Valencia on Monday, have express profound rage and indignation at what occurred explaining that his body was spat on and kicked by his killers, "as if he were and animal."

Violent clashes erupted between pro-government and opposition student groups on Venezuela's Central University (UCV) campus Wednesday after a march of approximately 10,000 opposition students against proposed constitutional reforms returned to the campus.

Venezuela’s opposition kicked off their campaign today against the Venezuelan Constitutional Reform, in a demonstration of thousands on Victoria Avenue in Caracas.

Violent clashes took place yesterday between opposition students and the police when students tried to break police lines near Venezuela's National Electoral Council building. Students marched on the Electoral Council to call for the constitutional reform referendum to be postponed.

After receiving the modified project of constitutional reform, which includes an additional 36 changes proposed by the National Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced Wednesday that the constitutional reform should be voted on in separate blocs, rather than one single bloc.

Thousands of opposition students marched through the streets of Caracas on Tuesday in protest of President Chavez's proposed constitutional reform. Some violence occurred as police barricades prevented the students from reaching the parliament buildings, but a delegation of students was allowed to pass to deliver a document to the National Assembly.

A dispute supported by the Venezuelan Medical Federation (FMV), erupted within Venezuela's public hospital system this week with doctors demanding salary increases and improved working conditions.