CARACAS, Venezuela -- With triple-digit inflation showing no signs of retreating and the new National Assembly vowing to remove the president, Venezuela over the last few days careered toward crises both economic and political.Yet the great debate of the week had less to do with the economy than it did with former President Hugo Chávez — or rather whether several pictures of Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013 of cancer, should still hang in the Capitol.
| First things first. All good socialists know how important symbols are, and that's why they're so unhappy about this... |
Henry Ramos, the Assembly’s incoming leader, stood on the Capitol steps and waved as the images of Mr. Chávez were taken away. He told reporters that only the country’s flag and shield should be displayed.
President Nicolás Maduro, Mr. Chávez’s handpicked successor, wasted no time in trying to turn his opponents’ symbolic gesture to his advantage. In a nationally televised speech on Wednesday evening, he called the removals outrageous, and said that portraits of Simon Bolívar, the country’s independence hero, had also been taken down.
“I can’t fail to express my anger, my repudiation,” Mr. Maduro said. “I call on the people to rebel against these neo-fascists, anti-Bolivarians, anti-patriots.”
On Thursday, a number of demonstrators assembled at a downtown plaza, heeding the president’s call. The Chávez portraits were brought there and guarded by soldiers.
The opposition, which won a majority last year in the Assembly for the first time in 16 years, won on promises to solve the country’s economic problems. Next week, however, it will focus on something else: freeing about 80 prisoners who it says were arrested by the Socialist authorities for political reasons.
Gaby Arellano, a new deputy from Popular Will, a political party whose leader has been jailed under Mr. Maduro, said legislators would soon address economic issues but warned that change would come slowly.
“We left it clear that we would not arrive on Jan. 6 and all the problems would be solved on Jan. 7,” she said. “If the government has spent all this time taking apart the country, it’s not going to be a question of months, but a question of years, in fixing this.”