73 pct Venezuelans support dialogue between government, opposition

Seventy-three percent of Venezuelans support the government of President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) in talks to find solutions to the country's problems, polling firm Hinterlaces announced Sunday.

According to the results, 1,580 Venezuelans were polled by phone between Nov. 24 and Dec. 5. Only 24 percent of these did not agree with the dialogue that began on Oct. 30 while 3 percent said they did not know enough to answer.

Meanwhile, 89 percent of the Venezuelans, who are deeply affected by an economic crisis which has made food and medicine scarce, agreed that the business sector should join the dialogue.

Eighty-five percent also said that in order to make a potential deal as wide-reaching as possible, independent political actors, which do not belong to the socialist administration or the MUD, should be included.

The Venezuelan government and the opposition MUD had agreed to meet in October to define a roadmap to overcome the country's political and economic crisis.

The talks, which started on Oct. 30, ran into trouble last week when the MUD refused to attend the third round, alleging that the government of Maduro had not fulfilled the commitments reached in the previous two rounds.

However, both sides later agreed to resume the dialogue on Jan. 13, 2017. Endi