Supporters and opponents of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez held rival rallies on Wednesday to mark the start of a new parliament shorn of power by the radical socialist's assumption of rule by decree. The outgoing National Assembly gave Chavez decree powers for 18 months, hobbling an incoming parliament that has a larger number of opposition legislators who had hoped to put a brake on the former soldier's self-styled "revolution."
Opposition supporters gathered noisily in downtown Caracas before the new lawmakers took their seats. They accuse the president of staging a "coup" against the Assembly and say he is turning the South American Opec member into a dictatorship. "Our tasks in the National Assembly are now very clear: to stop the imposition of communism in Venezuela, this communism that creates death, sadness and darkness," said one opposition leader and new Caracas legislator, Maria Corina Machado.
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