Venezuela opposition controls congress after 17 years

Venezuela's opposition was sworn in today as the majority in the National Assembly. It's the first time in 17 years that opponents of the socialist revolution begun by the late Hugo Chavez have controlled the legislature.
Voting to approve the legislature's new leadership followed debate over whether to take the oath of 163 or 167 lawmakers following a Supreme Court ruling barring four elected representatives from taking their seats over allegations of fraud, depriving the opposition of a two-thirds majority.
Those four ultimately were not sworn in.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of opposition supporters accompanied the incoming lawmakers past a heavy military barricade to the legislature downtown. A few blocks away, a larger crowd of government supporters gathered outside the presidential palace to lament the inauguration of what they called the "bourgeois parliament."

Reflecting the changing political winds, journalists for the first time in years were granted access to the legislature and state TV broadcast interviews with the opposition political leaders.
Conspicuously absent inside the dome-roofed legislative building were the oversized portraits of Chavez and independence hero Simon Bolivar that had been a fixture for years.

Instead, from the public gallery, the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez held up a sign reading "Amnesty Now," referring to what could be one of the legislature's first orders of business: a law freeing dozens of activists jailed during anti-government unrest in 2014.
"Keep a strong hand!" 65-year-old Mary Mujica shouted as the incoming parliamentary president, Henry Ramos, wiggled his way through the heavy crowd. "There's a criminal conspiracy running the country and you can't negotiate with criminals."

Incoming opposition lawmakers are promising to use their new muscle to make sweeping changes, while the socialist party of current President Nicolas Maduro has been equally adamant that the legislature not back Chavez's revolution.
The Supreme Court last week barred four lawmakers, including three from the opposition, from taking their seats.
The move was in response to a challenge by supporters of the socialists who accuse the opposition of stealing the Dec. 6 legislative election, and could effectively snatch away the opposition's two-thirds majority.
Yesterday, Ramos reiterated his promise to swear in all lawmakers. He said Maduro should consider resigning to save Venezuela from a political crisis, echoing the call hard-liners made in 2014 when they launched street protests that resulted in dozens of deaths.