CARACAS: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday rejected early elections as a way out of a spiraling crisis that has led to widespread shortages, soaring inflation and mass protests. “An electoral way out? No reference to early elections was made in the joint statement issued at the end of the Vatican-backed talks, but leaders of the main opposition coalition portrayed it as opening the way to elections as a solution to the political impasse. An opposition signature drive for a referendum to recall Maduro was stopped in its tracks earlier this year by a regime-dominated National Electoral Council and Supreme Court, leading to the current impasse. The opposition blames 17 years of socialist rule under the mustachioed president and his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

Source: Manila Times November 14, 2016 03:17 UTC