VENEZUELA, August 7: Pro-government factions mobilized thousands of Venezuelans dressed in red — the color of the ruling socialist party — onto the streets of the capital on Monday in a bid to show the country remains united around President Nicolas Maduro after what the government described as a thwarted assassination attempt.

“This river of red,” Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza declared as the crowd waved flags and carried posters with Maduro’s image. “It could have been another red running through these streets.”

Authorities say they have now captured all those behind the attack using two drones armed with explosives. The names of those detained have not been released, but chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab said the six people arrested could face charges including treason, attempted homicide and terrorism.

“They need to pay the penalty Venezuela’s law calls for,” Diosdado Cabello, a high-ranking socialist party leader, told the crowd of thousands. “There won’t be any more forgiveness.”

Public employees are required to attend such pro-government rallies to ensure a strong show of support. Yet, even as Venezuelan leaders sought to project a nation united behind Maduro, analysts warned the incident makes the already unpopular leader even more vulnerable as he struggles to reverse a crippling humanitarian and economic crisis considered worse than the Great Depression.

Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuelan analyst with the London-based consulting firm IHS Markit, warned Saturday’s failed attack could be a sign that low-level insurgent groups that have in the past expressed their frustration by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the National Guard during protests are now escalating to a more violent approach.

“This is a manifestation of institutions not being able to channel the political, economic and social crisis that Venezuela is going through,” he said.

Maduro was addressing hundreds of uniformed soldiers Saturday in a speech celebrating the 81st anniversary of the National Guard when an explosion pierced the air. Authorities say two drones, each packed with a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of C-4 plastic explosive, were aimed at the stage where Maduro, his wife and a slate of the nation’s highest-ranking government leaders were gathered.

The military managed to knock one of the drones off course electronically and the other craft crashed into an apartment building two blocks away.

Images captured on live television showed Maduro and his wife looking up at the sky as the explosion struck and then hundreds of soldiers scrambling from the scene, an image of panic in stark contrast to the one of power and control the government tries to project.

Saab said Monday that two suspects were detained quickly on Saturday after witnesses saw them operating one of the drones from a vehicle. He added that there was evidence that the attack was linked to an ongoing investigating related to a “terrorist attack” last year.

The comment appeared to be a reference to rogue police officer Oscar Perez, who flew a stolen helicopter over the capital in June 2017 and launched grenades at several government buildings. He and several comrades were killed in a gun battle with police after months on the lam.

In his rallying speech, Cabello told Venezuelans there is no doubt that the “Colombian oligarchy” and “North American imperialism” were behind Saturday’s attack.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos vehemently denied the accusation, saying that at the time of the attack he was at the baptism of his newborn granddaughter. The United States has also denied any involvement.

“They say they didn’t participate in this attack,” Cabello told supporters. “And in which ones did you participate, gentlemen of the imperialism?”

A little-known group calling itself Soldiers in T-shirts claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the explosive-laden drones were intended to target the president. “It was not successful today, but it is just a matter of time,” the group said in a tweet.

The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified, and the organization did not respond to a message from The Associated Press seeking further comment.

Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst, said that the political clout Maduro cemented in recent months suffered a blow with televised images of soldiers fleeing in fear. Maduro won a May election that was decried by the international community for lacking basic democratic guarantees. The opposition’s most popular leaders were barred from running.

Pantoulas noted that Maduro appeared to be making some advances in charting economic reforms and shifting from politics to policy since the election.

“Now, Maduro has to overcome doubts about his power,” he said. “It means instability and chaos.”

The attack comes as Venezuela’s economy continues to hemorrhage and thousands flee to neighboring Colombia seeking food and medical care. Meanwhile, Maduro has grown increasingly isolated, with the United States and other foreign powers slapping economic sanctions on a growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials and decrying his government as an autocratic regime.

The International Monetary Fund projects inflation could top 1 million percent by year’s end.

In his remarks since the attack, Maduro has vowed to press forward with the socialist revolution begun by his predecessor, the late President Hugo Chavez.

Cabello echoed that message at Monday’s rally.

“The right will never win here again!” he cried to resounding applause.

Ramon Duarte, a security worker at the march, said he believes Saturday’s attack will have the opposite effect of what the conspirators have intended: Serving to solidify support for the revolution.

“This revolution may have its errors,” he said. “But it needs to be supported.” AP

A colleague says Pablo Uzcategui was shot twice Monday night as he drove through the Barinas state capital with his son.

National Assembly lawmaker Carlos Berrizbeitia says the killing of Uzcategui was not a robbery. He says Uzcategui’s wife was driving behind her husband with the couple’s two daughters and witnessed the killing.

Uscategui led the Proyecto Venezuela party in Barinas. Berrizbeitia says he is not aware of Uzcategui receiving any death threats.

The prosecutor’s office has not commented.

Venezuela has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, at about 55 killings per 100,000 people. Political murders are relatively uncommon, however.

The release of Timothy Tracy, 35, occurred just hours before the top diplomats of both countries agreed during a meeting in Guatemala to discuss restoring ambassador-level relations.

It was secured with the help of former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who has long worked to improve often strained U.S.-Venezuelan ties and was hired by Tracy’s family as an attorney in the case.

“He’s been informally advising us since pretty much the onset and we retained him last week,” Tracy’s sister, Tiffany Klaasen, said of Delahunt, a member of the U.S. delegation at the March funeral ofVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Both she and Delahunt also credited the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. government and friends had ridiculed the idea that Tracy was spying in Venezuela. His family said he had been making a documentary about the human costs of Venezuela’s deeply polarized society.

Following the early morning expulsion, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Guatemala and agreed, said Kerry, to “begin to change the dialogue between our countries and hopefully quickly move” to appoint ambassadors, which they have lacked in each other’s capitals since 2010.

Delahunt acknowledged the coincidence of Tracy’s release but said “no conditions” were set by Kerry for the meeting with Jaua.

He said he had intervened on Tracy’s behalf with officials in Venezuela, who he said did not include President Nicolas Maduro, but “I want to keep those discussions private.”

“On both sides there is a desire to have an improvement in the relationship based upon respect, and that’s what’s important,” Delahunt said.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s president on Friday at a ceremony attended by leaders from Iran to Brazil after a decision to widen an electronic audit of the vote took some of the heat out of a dispute over his election.

Maduro, a bus driver-turned-foreign minister who became the late Hugo Chavez’s chosen successor, narrowly beat opposition challenger Henrique Capriles in the election last Sunday.

Capriles refused to accept the result, alleged widespread irregularities, demanded a full recount and called his supporters onto the streets in protest.

The government says eight people were killed in post-election violence and Maduro blamed the deaths on Capriles, although the opposition says Maduro allies staged some incidents to distract attention from the dispute over balloting.

Maduro took the oath of office alongside a large framed photo of the socialist Chavez, who led Venezuela for 14 years before losing a battle against cancer last month.

“I swear, on the eternal legacy of our founding fathers … on the eternal memory of our supreme commander, that I will uphold this constitution,” Maduro said.

In his first speech as president, which coincided with Venezuela’s celebration of its declaration of independence, Maduro offered a sentimental tribute to Chavez, the fiery and charismatic socialist whose death from cancer in March triggered Sunday’s vote.

“Every day I wake up thinking about him, and I go to bed thinking about him, in need of his guidance,” Maduro said.

He at times seemed to reach out to the opposition after beating Capriles by less than 2 percentage points compared to Chavez’s 11-point margin of victory in 2012.

“I call on those who for whatever reason did not vote for the candidate of the fatherland, I offer you an olive branch, I will work with you,” he said.

But at other times he compared his adversaries to those who persecuted Jews in Germany and accused them of sowing violence in the wake of the vote in an attempt to snatch power.

In an embarrassing breach of security, a young man in a red jacket ran up to the podium, pushed Maduro out of the way and shouted “Nicolas, my name is Yendrick, please help me,” into the microphone. He was tackled by bodyguards.

“Security has failed completely. They could have shot me up here,” said Maduro upon resuming his speech.

EXPANDED AUDIT

Overnight, the 50-year-old Maduro attended a last-minute meeting of South American leaders in Peru to discuss the post-election crisis. They congratulated him on his victory, and called on both sides to reject violence.

While he was in Lima, Venezuela’s electoral authority said it would widen to 100 percent an audit of electronic votes from a previous audit that reviewed 54 percent of the machines.

Venezuelans vote electronically, but the machines also print out paper receipts of each vote that are kept in boxes. The audit involves counting the paper ballots at some stations to ensure they are consistent with the machine-tallied results.

Capriles, who insists the opposition’s figures show he won, accepted the CNE’s decision although it fell short of the full manual recount he had wanted.

Even so, opposition legislators boycotted Maduro’s inauguration. Capriles urged supporters to play salsa music and bang pots and pans to protest the event, following similar protests since the night of the election.

“Let’s hear that salsa all over Venezuela! The voice of the people! This is a ‘for now’ government,” Capriles tweeted.

In upscale eastern Caracas, celebratory fireworks drowned out opposition protests.

The date for the start of the wider audit is to be announced next week. It is expected to take 30 days.

The CNE’s decision considerably eased tensions after days of violence and angry allegations by both sides that their rivals were sending armed thugs into the streets to terrorize people.

Maduro’s inauguration drew heads of state including Maduro’s Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff and Iran’sMahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with leaders of Chavez-era allies such as Bolivia, Uruguay and Nicaragua.

Ahmadinejad paid tribute to “the spirit and the soul of Commander Chavez, who had only love for all the peoples of the world” in comments to state television as he arrived at Congress, where the inauguration was held.

Russia and China, both involved oil projects in Venezuela’s vast Orinoco belt region, sent delegations.

DEEPLY POLARIZED

Thousands of government sympathizers surrounded Congress in downtown Caracas, dancing to upbeat music and clad in the Socialist Party’s signature red T-shirts.

Vendors peddled trinkets including foam mustaches that Maduro supporters tape to their upper lips in imitation of his facial hair.

“The streets out ours; we’ve come to defend them from the right wing,” said Carlos Poveda, 45, a merchant.

The unrest in Venezuela, just weeks after Chavez’s death from cancer, has exposed the deep polarization of a country split down the middle between pro- and anti-government factions.

Maduro’s administration accuses “fascist” Capriles supporters of going on a rampage, shooting people, attacking offices belonging to the ruling Socialist Party, and setting fire to government-run clinics staffed by Cuban doctors.

“My commander is still dead and his spirit is alive in Maduro,” said Rosalba Navarro, 44, who works with a government social program for single mothers, at a military fairgrounds waiting for the start of an independence day parade.

“I only ask that he treat the opposition with an iron hand and if Capriles needs to go to jail, that he go to jail,” she said, echoing calls by government officials that Capriles should be imprisoned for spurring violence over the last week.

Prominent Venezuelan human rights group Provea on Thursday questioned some of the alleged opposition attacks. It had been unable to find any evidence that the clinics, known as CDIs, were torched by opposition demonstrators.

Capriles, who has repeatedly called on his supporters to protest peacefully, has said the government was to blame for any violence because of its refusal to hold a recount.

“I asked for reports from all the country’s municipalities about incidents at CDIs,” he said on Twitter. “None were affected. Only sick minds would do something like this!”

CARACAS: Venezuelan President-elect Nicolas Maduro accused the opposition on Tuesday of planning a coup against him after seven government supporters were killed in clashes over his disputed election victory.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles wants a full recount of votes from Sunday’s election after official results showed a narrow victory for Maduro, who is late socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor.

Opposition demonstrations outside electoral authority offices around the country passed off peacefully on Tuesday, in contrast to Monday night when youths in Caracas and other cities blocked streets, burned tires and fought with police.

The authorities said the seven deaths included two people shot by opposition sympathizers while celebrating Maduro’s win in a middle-class area of the capital, and one person killed in an attack on a government-run clinic.

“This is the responsibility of those who have called for violence, who have ignored the constitution and the institutions,” a furious Maduro said in a speech to the nation.

“Their plan is a coup d’etat.”

Officials also said more than 60 people had been injured, including one woman whom protesters tried to burn alive, and 170 people were arrested.

OPPOSITION MARCH CANCELED

Maduro said he would not allow an opposition march that had been planned for Wednesday in Caracas.

Capriles later called off the rally, accusing the government of plotting to “infiltrate” the gathering to cause violence, and then blame it on the opposition.

The opposition has not responded to specific allegations relating to the deaths, but Capriles has repeatedly called for only peaceful demonstrations and said that the government was responsible for violence by denying the call for an recount.

The prospect of prolonged instability in the OPEC nation with the world’s largest oil reserves has unnerved markets.

Venezuela’s volatile and highly traded debt has tumbled on the dispute and unrest, with the benchmark 2027 bond off more than 3.0 percent on Tuesday.

A continuation of violent protests, despite Capriles’ entreaties, could damage the opposition’s credibility.

Maduro has played up attacks by rock-throwing protesters on popular government programs such as clinics staffed by Cuban doctors and subsidized state-run supermarkets, saying they prove Capriles wants to scrap Chavez-era social welfare programs.

That accusation was a principal plank of Maduro’s campaign.

State TV has played images of burning buildings and masked demonstrators, along with footage of a failed 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez but led many Venezuelans to question the opposition’s democratic credentials.

Chavez back then was toppled from power for 48 hours but bounced back quickly, purged critics inside the armed forces and stepped up the pace of his socialist policies.

The election was triggered by the death of Chavez last month after a two-year battle with cancer. He named Maduro as his successor before he died, and his protégé won the election with 50.8 percent of the vote against Capriles’ 49.0 percent.

Maduro, who had initially said he was open to a recount, called on his supporters to demonstrate all week. The National Electoral Council (CNE) has refused to conduct a recount.

‘TWO HALVES’

The electoral authority’s results showed him winning by 265,000 votes, but opposition sources said their count showed Capriles had received an additional 300,000 to 400,000 votes that were unaccounted for in the official tally.

Capriles’ team said it has evidence of 3,200 irregularities, from voters using fake IDs to intimidation of volunteers at polling centers. It wants an exhaustive review of paper ballots.

“We believe we won … we want this problem resolved peacefully,” Capriles told a news conference. “There is no majority here, there are two halves.”

The CNE said an audit of 54 percent of the voting stations, in a widely respected electronic vote system, had already been carried out.

The U.S. State Department, which had previously urged a full audit, questioned the CNE’s refusal to accommodate Capriles.

“The CNE’s decision to declare Mr. Maduro the victor before completing a full recount is difficult to understand. And they did not explain their haste in taking this decision,” said department deputy spokesman Patrick Ventell.

Capriles’ strategy could backfire if demonstrations turn into prolonged disturbances, such as those the opposition led between 2002 and 2004, which sometimes blocked roads for days with trash and burning tires, annoying many Venezuelans.

Senior government figures have raised the possibility of legal action against Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, for inciting the violence.

The controversy over Venezuela’s first presidential election without Chavez on the ballot in two decades raised doubts about the future of “Chavismo” – the late leader’s self-proclaimed socialist movement – without its towering and mercurial founder.

Maduro’s slight margin of victory raises the possibility he could face future challenges from within the leftist coalition that united around Chavez, who won four presidential elections.

At his last election in October, the former soldier beat Capriles by 11 percentage points even though his battle against cancer had severely restricted his ability to campaign.

Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan electoral officials say voters have narrowly elected Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor as president in a razor-close special election Sunday.

Winner Nicolas Maduro campaigned on a promise to carry on Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution, and defeated a two-time challenger who claimed the late president’s regime has put Venezuelaon the road to ruin.

Officials say Maduro defeated Henrique Capriles by only about 300,000 votes. The margin was 50.8 percent to 49.1 percent.

CARACAS, Venezuela: Voters chose Sunday between the hand-picked successor who campaigned to carry on Hugo Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution and an emboldened second-time challenger who warned that the late president’s regime has Venezuela on the road to ruin. Tensions rose soon after polls closed as both sides hinted at victory and suggested the other was plotting fraud.

Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the campaign for acting PresidentNicolas Maduro, said he couldn’t reveal the results before electoral authorities did but strongly suggested Maduro had won by smiling and summoning supporters to the presidential palace, where Chavez’s supporters gathered to celebrate the late president’s past victories. And he warned that Maduro’s camp would not allow the will of the people to be subverted.

Opposition challenger Henrique Capriles and his campaign aides immediately lashed out at Rodriguez’s comments.

Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, a Capriles campaign coordinator, suggested the government was trying to steal the election.

“They know perfectly well what happened and so do we,” he said at a hastily called news conference. “They are misleading their people and are trying to mislead the people of this country.”

Capriles also suggested fraud was in the works in a Twitter message: “We alert the country and the world of the intent to change the will of the people!”

In an earlier tweet, Capriles urged his supporters not to be “desperate and defeated.”

Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor and longtime U.S. ambassador-at-large who came to witness the election, told The Associated Press that both candidates had assured him they would respect the outcome of the vote.

“I’m not here as an election observer, but I met with both candidates — Maduro, yesterday, and Capriles today. And I’m hopeful because both told me they would respect the rule of law and the will of the people,” Richardson said.

Maduro, the 50-year-old longtime foreign minister to Chavez, pinned his hopes on the immense loyalty for his boss among millions of poor beneficiaries of government largesse and the powerful state apparatus that Chavez skillfully consolidated.

Maduro’s campaign was mostly a near-religious homage to the man he called “the redeemer of the Americas,” who succumbed to cancer March 5. He blamed Venezuela’s myriad woes on vague plots by alleged saboteurs that the government never identified.

Capriles’ main campaign weapon was to simply emphasize “the incompetence of the state,” as he put it to reporters Saturday night.

Maduro’s big lead in opinion polls was cut in half over the past two weeks in a country struggling with the legacy of Chavez’s management of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the $1 trillion in oil revenues during his tenure.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages, and rampant crime. Venezuela has one of the world’s highest homicide and kidnapping rates.

“We can’t continue to believe in messiahs,” said Jose Romero, a 48-year-old industrial engineer who voted for Capriles in the central city of Valencia. “This country has learned a lot and today we know that one person can’t fix everything.”

Voting lines seemed considerably lighter than in the October election that Chavez won, when more than 80 percent of the electorate turned out, although government officials said it was due to the improved efficiency of the system.

After polls closed there were moments of tension at some voting centers.

CARACAS, Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro was sworn in Friday as Venezuela’s acting president, using the occasion to launch blistering attacks on the U.S. as well as the political opposition, which objected that the ceremony violated the country’s constitution.

Late President Hugo Chavez designated Maduro as his successor before he died Tuesday of cancer. Maduro had been Chavez’s vice president.

The country’s 1999 constitution says the National Assembly speaker becomes interim president in the event of a president-elect’s death or inability to be sworn in. The constitution also says a presidential election should be called within 30 days.

Maduro has been picked as the presidential candidate of Chavez’s socialist party.

Opposition leader Angel Medina said earlier Friday that the opposition would boycott the swearing-in ceremony, and the vast majority of opposition legislators did not attend. Former U.S. presidential candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, attended the ceremony as did Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

Stray fireworks exploded above the capital of Caracas as soon as Maduro was sworn in as president.

Both Maduro and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello pledged to follow Chavez’s example and push his socialist-inspired agenda.

“I swear by the most absolute loyalty to comrade Hugo Chavez that we will fulfill and see that it’s fulfilled the constitution … with the iron fist of a people ready to be free,” Maduro said.

He also echoed accusations he made shortly before Chavez’s death that the U.S. had caused the leader’s fatal cancer. On Friday night, he referred to “this illness very strange for the speed of its growth and for other scientific reasons that will be known in their moment.”

He later duplicated Chavez’s penchant for slamming “the empire,” his term for the United States.

“We tell them: Sooner than later, the imperialist elites who govern the United States will have to learn to live with absolute respect with the insurrectional people of the … Latin and Caribbean America,” he said.

Maduro also claimed the allegiance of Venezuela’s army, calling it “the armed forces of Chavez” as he pumped his fist in the air, a gesture that was reciprocated by the defense minister watching from the gallery. Critics have voiced increasing concern about the overt support the military has shown to the ruling party since Chavez’s death, despite a ban on the army’s participation in politics.

He later named Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, Chavez’s son-in-law, as his vice president. Arreaza had frequently been at the side of the dying president in his final weeks, sometimes providing updates about his health.

Shortly before the swearing-in, opposition leader Henrique Capriles said Maduro had used Chavez’s funeral earlier in the day to campaign for the presidency. Capriles is widely expected to run against Maduro in the coming vote.

A former bus driver and union leader, Maduro had served as Chavez’s foreign minister and was often seen on television accompanying the president during cancer treatments in Cuba. Chavez named Maduro his No. 2 after winning his third re-election in October.

Since the death, Maduro was seen Wednesday leading a massive funeral cortege through the streets of Caracas as well as welcoming foreign dignitaries and delivering the eulogy at Friday’s funeral.

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela’s government announced Friday that it is devaluing the country’s currency, a long-anticipated change expected to push up prices in the heavily import-reliant economy.

Officials said the fixed exchange rate is changing from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar.

The devaluation had been widely expected by analysts in recent months, though experts had been unsure about whether thegovernment would act while President Hugo Chavez remained out of sight in Cuba recovering from cancer surgery.

It was the first devaluation to be announced by Chavez’s government since 2010, and it pushed up the price of the dollar against the bolivar by 46.5 percent.

By boosting the bolivar value of Venezuela’s dollar-denominated oil sales, the change is expected to help ease a difficult budget outlook for the government, which has turned increasingly to borrowing to meet its spending obligations.

But analysts said the move would not be sufficient to end the government’s budget woes or balance the exchange rate with an overvalued currency. Economists predicted higher inflation and a likely continuation of shortages of some staple foods, such as cornmeal, chicken and sugar.

Planning and Finance Minister Jorge Giordani said the new rate will take effect Wednesday, after the two-day holiday of Carnival. He said the old rate would still be allowed for some transactions that already were approved by the state currency agency.

Venezuela’s government has had strict currency exchange controls since 2003 and maintains a fixed, government-set exchange rate. Under the controls, people and businesses must apply to a government currency agency to receive dollars at the official rate to import goods, pay for travel or cover other obligations.

While those controls have restricted the amounts of dollars available at the official rate, an illegal black market has flourished and the value of the bolivar has recently been eroding. In black market street trading, dollars have recently been selling for more than four times the official exchange rate of 4.30 bolivars to the dollar.

Economist Pedro Palma, a professor at Caracas’ IESA business school, said the government’s decision to allow some previously requested dollar transactions for products in categories such as food, health care, construction and autos will somewhat soften the impact on inflation. But he predicted the devaluation would inevitably further drive up inflation.

Economist Jose Guerra told The Associated Press that given the devaluation, he predicts inflation of more than 25 percent this year.

The announcement of the devaluation came after the country’s Central Bank said annual inflation rose to 22.2 percent in January, up from 20.1 percent at the end of 2012.

The oil-exporting country, a member of OPEC, has consistently had Latin America’s highest officially acknowledged inflation rates in recent years. Spiraling prices have come amid worsening shortages of some foods.

Seeking to confront such shortages, the government last week announced plans to have the state oil company turn over more of its earnings in dollars to the Central Bank while reducing the amount injected into a fund used for various government programs and public works projects.

It was the fifth time that Chavez’s government has devalued the currency since establishing the currency exchange controls a decade ago in an attempt to combat capital flight.

Giordani said the government also decided to do away with a second-tier rate that has hovered around 5.30 bolivars to the dollar, through a bond market administered by the Central Bank.

That rate had been granted to some businesses that hadn’t been able to obtain dollars at the official rate, and accounted for roughly one-fifth of government-approved foreign currency transactions.

Central Bank President Nelson Merentes called that bond trading system, known by the acronym Sitme, “imperfect.”

“It doesn’t make much sense to keep a system that seeks the country’s debt to feed it,” Merentes said.

Palma said it’s worrying that the government is not providing any additional outlet for Venezuelans to obtain dollars, given the strong demand for foreign currency. Guerra, a professor at Central University of Venezuela, predicts that demand for dollars is likely to keep pushing the so-called “parallel” dollar market higher.

The government’s announcement drew strong criticism from opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who said that the government’s heavy spending was to blame for the situation and that officials were trying to slip the change past the public at the start of a long holiday weekend.

“They spent the money on campaigning, corruption, gifts abroad!” Capriles said in one of several messages on his Twitter account. Capriles was defeated by Chavez in an October presidential vote that was preceded by a burst of heavy government spending.

Capriles criticized Vice President Nicolas Maduro’s handling of the situation. Maduro, who was named by Chavez as his preferred successor before undergoing cancer surgery Dec. 11, has taken on more responsibilities and a higher profile during the president’s nearly two-month absence.

“They give Mr. Maduro a little more time in charge and he finishes with the country,” Capriles said. “Look at the inflation in January, and now the devaluation.”

Maduro said on television that the measure had been approved by Chavez. He said the change was necessary in response to a recent “speculative attacks” against the country’s currency.

The riot was triggered when local media broadcast news that soldiers had been sent to Uribana prison in Barquisimeto to search for weapons, Prisons Minister Iris Varela said.

Hospital director Ruy Medina told AFP news agency that some 90 people were injured, mostly from gunshot wounds.

The dead are thought to include inmates, guards and prison workers.

Carlos Nieto Palma, co-ordinator of the non-governmental organisation “A Window to Freedom” that defends Venezuelan prisoners’ rights, told BBC Mundo that the death toll could rise.

“What should have been a normal procedure in any prison ended in a clash between National Guard [soldiers] and inmates,” he said.

He added that his organisation classed Uribana prison as the most dangerous in the country, on the basis of the number of violent incidents recorded there.

Venezuela’s prisons are blighted by overcrowding and the proliferation of weapons and drugs.

The BBC’s Sarah Grainger in the capital, Caracas, says it appears that prisoners who had heard about the search in advance from news reports were waiting for the National Guard when they arrived.

It is thought that the search was aimed at disarming gangs within the prison and had been planned for some time, she reports.

There has been no official account of the incident or confirmation of the number of casualties, but the government says it will carry out a full investigation.