Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido vowed Tuesday to take Nicolas Maduro’s place in the presidential palace “very soon,” as thousands of people took to the streets of Caracas to protest.
“We need an office to work in, so very soon, and when we have the armed forces totally on our side, we’ll go to find my office there in Miraflores. Very soon,” Guaido told supporters, who chanted back: “Yes, you can!”
Demonstrators banged pots and sounded car horns at the protest in a square in the east of the capital. Many waved large banners calling on Maduro to go.
“The situation is very difficult, we are hoping that this government will change. We’ve had enough of this chaos!” said one of the demonstrators, Miguel Gonzalez.
“With courage and strength I asked you to believe in yourselves, that Venezuela would emerge from the darkness, that the end of the usurpation is very close,” said Guaido, who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries.
Venezuela’s state prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, meanwhile told reporters he would place Guaido under investigation for “his alleged involvement in the sabotage of the Venezuelan electricity system.”
It is the first government move against the US-backed Guaido since his return to Venezuela last week after defying a travel ban to visit several allied South American leaders.
Maduro has blamed a devastating multi-day blackout plaguing Venezuela on US “sabotage” in the form of an electromagnetic attack on the country’s main hydroelectric complex.
But critics have long pointed the finger at the government for failing to maintain the power grid.
Guaido, 35, is seeking to capitalize on public anger over the blackout, which has piled misery on a population suffering years of economic crisis and shortages of food and medicine under Maduro.
