Venezuelan president presents annual report to Congress amid tense political climate

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro presented his annual report Friday to the National Assembly (AN) amid a brewing political crisis.

The president warned that it would not be easy to manage the conflict of powers in the country, due to "a socialist government and people that will not lower their flags."

The right-wing opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) secured a two-thirds majority in the AN on Dec. 6, which came as a shock for Maduro and his socialist allies, who had controlled the AN for 16 years.

Facing a tough situation with the opposition MUD lawmakers proposing a vote of no confidence against him, Maduro said he would be creating a Commission for Justice, Truth and Peace to investigate the country's riots in 2014 and 2015, which have claimed 44 deaths.

The commission "will investigate ... the events when acts of violence took over the streets of our country."

Opposition figures such as Leopoldo Lopez have received long jail terms for their alleged participation in the riots, but the MUD majority has vowed to pass a law to pardon them.

Addressing Venezuela's woeful economy, Maduro blamed the country's misfortunes on four factors: falling oil prices, weak national productivity, the absence of a spirit of cooperation in the country, and "constant attacks made on our national currency by the U.S. and Colombia."

He accused his political adversaries of "affecting the national economy and stability and weakening our exchange system."

Maduro also lambasted the country's vast black market system, warning that "speculative prices on the margins of the law" must stop.

The president acknowledged that 2015 "had been the most difficult year of the revolution," yet "social investments had represented 62 percent (of public spending), as opposed to 37 percent in the years prior to the Bolivarian cycle."

He stated that one of his greatest missions was the Venezuela Great Housing Mission (GMVV), which met its goal of providing 1 million houses for poorer Venezuelans in 2015 with over 326,000 houses being built that year.

Maduro stressed that the GMVV would continue to be put into effect in 2016 at any cost.

He ruled out the possibility of applying a capitalist model to the project, seen as a move to defy the opposition party. "You think we will shut up while you make it capitalist. No. You'll have to topple me," he said. Endi