Venezuela tense as defiant deputies take over assembly

A tense struggle for control of Venezuela's legislature threatens to come to a head at a swearing-in ceremony today as opposition lawmakers defy government efforts to weaken their majority.
Opponents and loyalists alike of the country's Socialist leadership have called on their supporters to rally at the National Assembly as an opposition majority takes over for the first time in 17 years.
Facing the toughest challenge yet to his authority from the new assembly, President Nicolas Maduro moved to calm tensions late Monday by saying he had ordered the security forces to ensure the investiture goes ahead peacefully.
He said authorities and the opposition discussed safety measures so that demonstrators "can go out, sing their songs and chant their slogans with enough space so that access to the National Assembly is not obstructed."

The call for rallies raised fears of fresh unrest in the oil-rich, crisis-hit country, where street violence sparked by anti-government protests left 43 people dead in 2014.
The tension around Tuesday's proceedings "underlines the climate of political confrontation and government instability," wrote Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuelan analyst at research group IHS.

"The armed forces will play a key role behind the scenes."
Maduro also said he would try to get the assembly to support a new economic emergency plan. That could set the stage for yet another serious political clash.
The opposition coalition MUD won a majority in the assembly in elections on December 6, for the first time since 1999, when late socialist president Hugo Chavez came to power.

His successor Maduro has taken judicial steps to reduce the opposition's two-thirds supermajority.
It has appointed new judges to the 32-member Supreme Court, which has granted his request to suspend the swearing-in of three incoming lawmakers over alleged voting fraud.
Losing those three deputies would take away the opposition's supermajority of 112 of the 167 seats in the assembly.
The opposition wants to take constitutional steps to get rid of Maduro, but would be much less likely to succeed without a supermajority.
The MUD insisted its legislators would all turn up to be sworn in on Tuesday, setting up a tense standoff.

Hardline grassroots pro-government groups vowed to take to the streets.
The new opposition lawmakers voted in one of their senior figureheads, Henry Ramos Allup, as the new assembly speaker on Sunday.