Venezuela: Guaido stripped off immunity
The legislators of Venezuela has stripped off Juan Guaido of the immunity thus giving way to the prosecution of the leader of the opposition and also his potential arrest. He is accused of violation of the Constitution when he had declared himself as the interim President. Diosdado Cabello, the head of the Constituent Assembly had stated that the prosecution of Guaido has been officially authorised. It is not clear if President Nicolas Maduro will actually act against the 35-year old legislator. Guaido is said to have taken up an international campaign to topple the regime of Maduro amidst the growing unrest in the country which is already suffering from a month of power outages.
Guaido had declared himself as the interim President in January and had taken a pledge to topple Maduro administration. Maduro had so far avoided detaining of Guaido who had been recognised by US President Donald Trump and 50 other nations as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
Cabello had also accused Guaido of secretly inviting a foreign invasion and also giving way to a civil war. Cabello stated that Guaido and his followers are not concerned about the death of people and do not have any idea of the consequences of the war for a country. The Constituent Assembly of Venezuela had met after a day when Maduro’s ally and the Supreme Court Justice Maikel Moreno, had ordered the legislative council to strip Guaido of all the immunity for violation of an order which banned him from leaving the country till the investigation of attorney general is going on.
Immunity is guaranteed by the Constitution of Venezuela for all the elected officials but also states that the immunity can be revoked against all accused legislators. Also, for withdrawing the immunity, the legislator should be given a preliminary hearing before the Supreme Court. The action has to be further ratified by the National Assembly- both the steps which were not taken in case of Guaido.
President Maduro has blamed the US administration for launching an attempt to overthrow his government and trying to install a puppet government under Guaido with an aim to seize the vast oil reserves of Venezuela.
