Venezuelan president, amid demands to resign, calls for a new constitution

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Speaking to supporters at a May Day rally Monday in Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the country needs a new constitution in order to restore peace. "I don't want a civil war," he said.

Maduro has triggered an article of the current constitution that reforms all public powers, The Guardian reports, and he claimed he did this in order "to achieve the peace needed by the republic, defeat the fascist coup, and let the sovereign people impose peace, harmony, and true national dialogue." Opposition leaders do not agree with this move, and believe it's a way to further sideline the National Assembly, which is controlled by the opposition.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.