Category: Politics

Pressure mounts on Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

Opposition parties stage marches in effort to step up campaign to topple President Nicolas Maduro via recall referendum.

Riot police have fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters in Venezuela’s capital amid opposition demonstrations to pressure electoral authorities into allowing a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro.

Protesters and National Guard members clashed on a highway in Caracas on Wednesday where thousands of demonstrators chanted “freedom” and waved copies of the constitution.

A video showed an officer appearing to use pepper spray against Henrique Capriles, the two-time presidential candidate, during the protest.

Capriles later said on Twitter that he was fine.

In the western opposition stronghold of Tachira, protesters brandished signs reading “We don’t want to do die of hunger”, while some masked youths blocked streets with rubbish and prepared Molotov cocktails.

The Democratic Unity coalition has stepped up its campaign to topple Maduro amid a worsening economic crisis, but says the government-leaning electoral body is intentionally delaying the verification of signatures in favour of the referendum.

The opposition submitted roughly 1.85 million signatures on May 2 in favour of the referendum.

If they are validated, the opposition must then request another petition drive and gather around four million signatures to trigger a referendum.

If the opposition succeeds this year in winning a recall referendum to oust Maduro, whose term ends in 2019, new elections would be held.

But if a successful recall referendum is held next year, the presidency would fall to the vice president, a post currently held by Aristobulo Isturiz, a loyalist of the governing United Socialist Party.

The opposition says Maduro, elected in 2013, is pushing the oil-producing country towards economic catastrophe.

One recent opinion poll showed that almost 70 percent of Venezuelans want Maduro stripped of presidency this year.

Billionaire businessman may have dominated primary polls but getting elected as US president will be an uphill task.

I was part of a very interesting show on Al Jazeera this week. The Stream invited me on to join a panel of fellow correspondents from across the globe. We were talking about how the world was reacting to the race for president of the United States.

It was interesting because the reaction was universal. From Europe to the Middle East and in Africa, the world it seems is terrified of what is happening in the US. Namely they are terrified of what a Donald Trump presidency would look like.

You can understand why many are expressing concern. Latin America is worried that he will build a wall and steal the remittances from their families. He has also promised to round up 11 million undocumented workers from across the globe and send them back to their home countries.

You could understand why 1.6 billion Muslims would be concerned – after all he’s planned to ban them from coming to the country. He would likely let the roughly three million Muslims living in the US stay.

You could probably see why anyone who is actually a part of the global economy might be concerned. He has vowed to tear up all existing trade deals which would likely lead to a trade war.

Then he promised to basically default on the debt. He explained it as asking people to sell back US Treasury bonds at a discount. That is actually a default by a different name. He went on to try and explain that the country couldn’t default because it prints its own money. He didn’t explain exactly what that meant and economists are at a loss to figure it out either.

Given all he has said that is so extreme my fellow panelists had one question for me. How is it possible that America is backing Trump? I explained the country hasn’t voted for Trump. He has won the support of the majority of Republicans who have voted in the primary. People who vote in primaries tend to be the most extreme members of their political parties.

More than 10 million people cast their ballots to give him the Republican nomination. That might sound like a lot but compare that with the 129,085,410 people who voted in the last presidential election.

The next question of course is can he win? It seems likely that he will face former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton. I put in all of her past titles to give you a sense of what her problem is.

You might read that and think experience, but for many Americans it’s a reminder that she has been on the national stage for more than two decades and they are tired of her.

She’s had her share of controversies and the majority of Americans say they don’t trust her, they don’t think she is honest. She’s still the subject of a federal inquiry into the fact that she set up her own private email server to use while secretary of state.

She says it was for convenience but many think it was an attempt to circumvent public disclosure rules. She literally could not have come up with a scandal that would do more to reinforce the negative narrative about her that she plays by her own rules. Her unfavourability rating is going to work against her. In polls just under 55 percent of people asked say they don’t really like her all that much.

The good news for her team is that a lot more people have an unfavourable opinion of Trump. His number is 65.4 percent. You would be hard pressed to find a more unpopular presidential candidate at any time in the nation’s history.

He has a much higher unfavourability number if you break it down into groups. The vast majority of African-Americans, Latinos, women and young voters say they don’t like him. That is a long list of critical groups. If he can’t change their minds, he can’t win the presidency.

You have heard many shell-shocked Republican politicians try to explain Trump’s policy proposals by saying he is not a politician and he will need a little time to learn the issues. They promise he will be less extreme and act in a more “presidential” way.

They may want to check with their candidate who just explained he is going to continue to behave exactly the way he has in the primary. He basically says it’s worked so far so why change now?

Both of these candidates tend to bring out the passion of followers on the other side. Fervent Republicans will show up to vote if only to deny Clinton a victory. The most passionate Democrats will make sure they vote to keep Trump out of the White House.

The election will be determined by how those in the middle decide to vote; whether it is for a candidate or against one. And as we have seen in the past – in US elections fear is an excellent motivator.

Protesters clash with police as majority of senators say they will vote to have Dilma Rousseff suspended for 180 days.

Brazil’s senators are debating whether to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial over allegations that she illegally manipulated the budget to hide a growing fiscal deficit.

The debate, which continued into the early hours of Thursday, will be followed by a vote that could suspend Rousseff, the first woman to become Brazilian president, for the duration of the investigation, which would be 180 days.

After 18 hours of debate, in which each senator were given the opportunity to give a 15-minute speech, a majority had said Rousseff should face an impeachment trial.

Al Jazeera’s Latin America Editor Lucia Newman, reporting from Brasilia, said Rousseff was expected to lose by an overwhelming majority.

“It is a dramatic time for Brazil,” she said. “Even the pope has weighed in, calling for prayers and dialogue.”

Outside Congress, where a metal fence was erected to keep apart rival protests, about 6,000 backers of impeachment chanted “Out with Dilma” while police used pepper spray to disperse gangs of Rousseff supporters, who hurled flares back. One person was arrested for inciting violence.

If Rousseff’s opponents garner a simple majority in the 81-seat Senate session, Rousseff will be replaced on Thursday by Vice President Michel Temer as acting president for up to six months.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal to block the Senate vote.

Chaotic process

In April, the lower house of parliament voted to impeach Rousseff, who has been president since 2011.

But on Monday, Waldir Maranhao, the interim head of the legislature’s lower house, threw the impeachment effort into disarray by annulling that vote, citing procedural problems.

He then reversed the decision several hours later, setting the stage for the vote in the Senate.

Deeply unpopular, Rousseff’s presidency has been damaged by corruption scandals, political paralysis and a sharp economic downturn.

About 11 million people are out of work.

Rousseff faces impeachment over accusations of tampering with figures to disguise the size of Brazil’s budget deficit during her 2014 re-election campaign.

She has denied any wrongdoing, and cast the efforts to remove her as a coup.

Attorney general requests annulment of impeachment proceedings against Brazil’s president.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has taken her battle to survive impeachment to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to stay in office a day before the Senate is expected to vote to try her for breaking budget laws.

Brazil’s Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo, the government’s top lawyer, asked the Supreme Court to annul impeachment proceedings on Tuesday, his office said.

Cardozo’s move comes ahead of a vote that could see Rousseff suspended from office for up to six months to stand trial and eventually, removed from office.

Rousseff’s opponents have more than the 41 votes needed to launch her trial in the upper chamber of the Congress, and they are confident they can muster two-thirds of the 81 senators, or 54, to unseat the president.

As the prospect grew of Rousseff’s removal and a potential end to 13 years of rule by her leftist Workers Party, anti-impeachment protesters blocked roads and burned tires in the capital Sao Paulo and other cities early on Wednesday. Morning traffic was disrupted as protesters clashed with police.

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from the capital Sao Paolo, said everything was ready in Brazil for the Senate session which will determine Rousseff’s future.

“Many here say the attorney general’s appeal to the Supreme Court to avoid the impeachment process is unlikely to change anything,” she said.

“Rousseff said on Tuesday that she is not tired of this fight, but of those who have been disloyal to her, adding that what was happening in Brazil was a coup, asking people to defend democracy.”

Earlier on the same day, Waldir Maranhao, the acting speaker of the lower house of Congress, withdrew his controversial decision to annul last month’s impeachment vote in the chamber.

Maranhao, a little known politician before taking over last week after the removal of Eduardo Cunha for obstruction of a corruption investigation, faces expulsion from his centre-right Progressive Party, which supports Rousseff’s impeachment.

Rousseff’s opponents have more than the 41 votes needed to launch her trial in the upper chamber of the Congress, and they are confident they can muster two-thirds of the 81 senators, or 54, to unseat the president.

As the prospect grew of Rousseff’s removal and a potential end to 13 years of rule by her leftist Workers Party, anti-impeachment protesters blocked roads and burned tires in the capital Sao Paulo and other cities early on Wednesday. Morning traffic was disrupted as protesters clashed with police.

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from the capital Sao Paolo, said everything was ready in Brazil for the Senate session which will determine Rousseff’s future.

“Many here say the attorney general’s appeal to the Supreme Court to avoid the impeachment process is unlikely to change anything,” she said.

“Rousseff said on Tuesday that she is not tired of this fight, but of those who have been disloyal to her, adding that what was happening in Brazil was a coup, asking people to defend democracy.”

Earlier on the same day, Waldir Maranhao, the acting speaker of the lower house of Congress, withdrew his controversial decision to annul last month’s impeachment vote in the chamber.

Maranhao, a little known politician before taking over last week after the removal of Eduardo Cunha for obstruction of a corruption investigation, faces expulsion from his centre-right Progressive Party, which supports Rousseff’s impeachment.

The Workers’ Party and labour unions called for a national strike to resist what they call a “coup” against democracy.

The impeachment process comes as Brazil is mired in its worst recession since the 1930s and shaken by the country’s biggest ever corruption scandal, which have paralysed Rousseff’s second-term administration.

Rousseff has steadfastly denied committing any impeachable crime and has vowed to fight impeachment by all means legally possible. She has dismissed calls for her resignation.