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Venezuela's Guaido, Maduro-Backed MP Make Competing Speakership Claims

VOA News

   Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido and a rival lawmaker, Luis
   Parra, backed by socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, claimed to be the
   country's parliament speaker on Sunday after two separate votes and
   accusations of a "parliamentary coup."

   Guaido was blocked from entering the chamber where corruption-tainted
   Parra proclaimed himself speaker after claiming to have been elected
   with 81 votes in the 167-member chamber.

   Opposition lawmakers later re-elected Guaido in a hastily arranged
   session at the headquarters of El Nacional newspaper, the last
   remaining newspaper in Caracas critical of Maduro and his ruling
   Socialist party. A tally showed that 100 of parliament's 167
   legislators voted in Guaido's favor.

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