Venezuela’s opposition is to hold an unofficial referendum on President Nicolas Maduro’s controversial plan to rewrite the constitution via a new congress.

The Democratic Unity coalition, which is starting a fourth month of street protests aims to hold a symbolic vote on July 16 to delegitimise Maduro.
Venezuelan’s will also be asked their view on the military^s responsibility for “recovering constitutional order” and the formation of a new “national unity” government.

Maduro plans to hold his referendum on July 30.

Julio Borges who is President of the Opposition-led National Assembly had a warning:
“If this dictatorship comes to fulfil its purpose and consolidate itself with this fraud, it definitively means the dissolution of Venezuela. We fit into the Constitution. In Maduro’s invention, only he and his project to stay in power, fit in.”

In contrast President Maduro claims the new Congress is the only way to bring peace to Venezuela after the deaths of at least 84 people in and around anti-government unrest.

However a recent survey says seven out of ten Venezuelan’s are opposed to rewriting of the constitution which was reformed by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.