Venezuela's Guaido Starts Domestic Tour to Stir Support

Valencia (Venezuela), Mar 17 (AFP) Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim leader Juan Guaido began a tour of his country aimed at sparking a citizen's movement to pry President Nicolas Maduro from power.

As Guaido, 35, kicked off his "operation freedom" in the northern city of Valencia on Saturday, the pro-Maduro military staged the latest in a series of exercises.

The drill focused on defending hydroelectric infrastructure from attack -- a reaction to a weeklong national blackout that Maduro blamed on US "sabotage" but experts said was more likely the result of years of neglect.

Guaido, the head of the opposition-ruled National Assembly whose claim to be caretaker president is recognized by the US, Canada and much of Latin America and Europe, vowed he would "very soon" take up office in Miraflores, the presidential palace.

He has been pushing for nearly two months against Maduro after declaring himself acting president during street rallies by tens of thousands, following Maduro's swearing-in for a second term despite elections widely dismissed as a sham.

"We are going to reclaim what belongs to the people," Guaido told thousands of supporters on Saturday.

Maduro, he said, "believes that a thieving gang or a palace makes him president. It's only the support of our people that makes someone president of a nation and he doesn't have that.

And not much longer will he be in that palace." Guaido offered no timeline for the mobilization across Venezuela, which he said will culminate with a march on the presidential palace in Caracas.

"I'm ready to head over to Miraflores right now, wherever my future president Juan Guaido asks me to go," said one of his supporters, Milagros Lima, 50, a lawyer. She told AFP that her "whole family" are among the millions who have fled the country's dire shortages of food and medicine.

"If it weren't for them, we'd be starving to death," she said.

Accompanying Guaido on his tour are opposition lawmakers tasked with creating citizen assemblies — "freedom cells" — across the country. The opposition said that, by Saturday, around 50 had already been set up in half of Venezuela's 23 states.

"Whatever happens, we must be united, mobilized in the streets," Guaido said, adding that he has not ruled out asking the National Assembly to activate a constitutional clause allowing foreign military intervention -- though such a move "depended on others."

That was taken as a reference to US military action, which US President Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out, even though there is no sign such an operation is being mounted and US allies in Latin America oppose the idea. (AFP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)