Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro hurled lurid insults at opposition leaders in a recent speech, belying his offers for peaceful dialogue with protesters, the Washington Post reports.
Maduro has urged the opposition to join him in "peace" talks and end protests that have resulted in at least in 29 deaths. Protesters blame the deaths on a crack down by security forces and have refused to attend talks unless jailed opposition leaders are released.
Maduro has recently equated leading opposition figures with the homicidal red-haired doll from the "Chucky" films:
In a speech over the weekend loaded with "Chucky" references, Maduro called jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López, who has been held in a military prison for a month and is accused of fomenting violence, "Crazy Chucky." Another leading opposition figure, congresswoman María Corina Machado, is also a "Crazy Chucky," Maduro said.
He then told a rambling, ribald joke about Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader Maduro defeated in last year’s election by 1.5 percentage points, calling him "Chucky Lucky." The joke’s punch line was that Capriles had been sexually assaulted by a large gorilla while visiting Africa and was lucky to survive."
Venezuela’s Congress, controlled by Maduro’s ruling Socialist Party, on Tuesday requested a criminal investigation of Machado for allegedly damaging buildings and inciting civil war.
Machado remained defiant, according to Reuters:
Machado sat stone-faced as legislators rattled off accusations, with some legislators chanting "Justice, justice."
"I'm convinced that this attack against me is the product of a regime that's terrified by an unprecedented citizens' movement," Machado said in a defiant press conference on Tuesday night, vowing the opposition would keep up protests.
"They are determined to break us, and we are determined to win our freedom," she said, calling Maduro a dictator.