Pushing Back At Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela Lawmakers Reject Presidential Emergency Decree

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Tuesday rejected President Nicolas Maduro’s state of emergency decrees, heightening tensions between the opposition-led legislature and the president.

Lawmakers from the Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition, which holds a strong majority of the legislature, said Maduro’s effort to broaden police, military and civilian patrol powers to keep the peace "deepens the severe disruption of constitutional and democratic order that Venezuela is suffering through,” according to Agence France-Presse.

On Saturday, Maduro called for a state of emergency, renewable after 60 days, that broadens police and military powers in an effort to maintain control of an increasingly unstable situation. Venezuela is an OPEC-member country whose already weak economy has been battered by low global oil prices.

Wreaked with hyperinflation, empty grocery store shelves, street crime and power outages, the public is becoming increasingly fed up with the status quo. Maduro, a member of the United Socialist Party, became president in 2013 by a slim majority following the death of Hugo Chávez. He is facing increasing calls to step down before his term ends in 2019.