MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — Venezuela will hold voting on July 30 to elect the Constitutional Assembly, set to rewrite the constitution as a way out of the political turmoil, which started in January 2016, when a new legislature was elected and relations between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the parliament became strained.
"The Constituent Assembly should be abandoned in order to achieve coordinated, swift and peaceful solution in Venezuela. The whole world is asking for it," Santos wrote in his Twitter.
18 July 2017, 00:39 GMT
An unofficial referendum organized by the opposition on Sunday rejected the Maduro's plan to convene the Constituent Assembly. An absolute majority of 98 percent of the voters refused to accept the president's plan.
Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump said in a White House statement that the United States would take swift and strong economic action if the government of Nicolas Maduro imposed its Constituent Assembly on July 30.
