Venezuelan opposition leader sits out dialogue

[Zorro]

Source: AP

A meeting billed as a national dialogue for local and state officials in troubled Venezuela convened Monday without the country's most prominent opposition leader.

Gov. Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate in the last two presidential elections, said he would not attend the meeting called by President Nicolas Maduro amid political turmoil that has engulfed the country in recent weeks.

Capriles did not say whether he would also sit out a national peace conference called by the president for Wednesday. Capriles, governor of wealthy Miranda state, told reporters that attending Monday's meeting would look like an endorsement for a government that he says has engaged in "repression" as troops and police have clashed with protesters.

"I am not going to make Nicolas Maduro look good ... That is what they want, that I go there as if the country was absolutely normal," he said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-opposition-leader-sits-dialogue-003301835.html

[joshcryer]

1. He has no control over the protesters.

Any kind of "peace agreement" would be unenforceable, and the government knows this, so Maduro would say "Capriles broke his word" as the protests continued.

They are all playing a political game as students die in the street.

Maduro needs a phantom to blame.

Capriles and Lopez need validation.

The students go ignored.