IT IS to be the dawn of "a new Venezuela", proclaimed the president, Nicolas Madu-ro. He was celebrating the election on July 30th of a constituent assembly, which will now become the supreme power in the country. A day later Venezuelans got a taste of what the new Venezuela might look like. Before first light, agents of Sebin, the state security agency, swooped into the houses of two opposition politicians and hauled them off to prison. Leopoldo Lopez, the country's most prominent political prisoner, had been transferred to house arrest in July. He expected re-incarceration: he had recorded a video urging supporters to "fight for" Venezuela, to be released when it happened. Antonio Ledezma, the former mayor of Caracas, was still in his pyjamas when agents forced him into a car. Someone took a mobile-phone video of the arrest, in which a woman can be heard screaming "dictatorship" at the abductors.
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