500,000 protesters demand recall of Venezuela’s President Maduro, defying tear gas and arrest threats

Nothing was going to stop Nelson Rivas from joining the Taking Caracas demonstration on Thursday — not his wheelchair, not the 10km distance over uneven pavement, the whiffs of tear gas, nor the ominous threats of arrests from President Nicolas Maduro.

“I came to demand that the recall election take place according to the constitution,” said Rivas, 35. “Whatever your point of view, the condition of the country is the worst.”

Rivas took his place among the 500,000 or so who filled Francisco de Miranda Avenue and two other main streets in the capital, until they were brimming with protesters mostly dressed in white. Surrounding him were people carrying posters reading “No more socialism,” “Maduro Out,” and “Venezuela wants a recall.”

Marchers like Rivas said life in Venezuela has become a daily ordeal of standing in endless lines for food, for government services, for medical care.

The demonstration, aimed at speeding up a recall campaign against the 53-year-old president, was also a forceful repudiation of the leftist politics that are falling out of favour across Latin America.

At its peak in 2008, the left held the presidencies of eight of the 10 most populous countries in South and Central America. But those regimes have lost popularity as steep drops in commodity prices badly damaged their economies and left less money to spend on the poor.