TEHRAN, Jun 1- Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido renewed calls for President Nicolas Maduro to resign on Friday while campaigning in the birthplace of former leader Hugo Chavez, following inconclusive talks in Norway to end the country's crisis.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Guaido has been leading a push to oust leftist firebrand Maduro, who has presided over a crumbling economy after succeeding Chavez in 2013.
During a brief speech before a handful of followers in the small town of Sabaneta, Guaido called for a "large mobilization" of protesters to rally against the government over shortages of gasoline and prolonged blackouts in the country.
"The real solution is, without a doubt, to leave once and for all and let us live in peace," he said of Maduro.
Sabaneta has been turned into a shrine for the hugely popular Chavez, who mixed a larger-than-life personality with a man-of-the-people style and generously-funded social programs through oil revenues.
Dozens of walls in the town are adorned with murals of the leftist leader, who died of cancer in 2013, and a bronze and granite statue of the former president, donated by the Rosneft oil company on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stands six blocks away from where Guaido spoke on Friday.
But Maduro struggled to fill his mentor's shoes and he quickly lost favor after a fall in oil prices in 2014 precipitated a massive economic crisis.
Venezuela is reeling from astronomical rises in the cost of consumer goods, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting an inflation rate of 10 million percent by the end of the year.
Source: AFP
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