page_title: Timeline of the 2017 Venezuelan protests
section_title: August
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the 2017 Venezuelan protests / August
caption_attribution_description: English: Venezuelan troops following the recapture of Paramacay Military Base.
context_page_description: The 2017 Venezuelan protests began in late January following the abandonment of Vatican-backed dialogue between the Bolivarian government and the opposition. The series of protests originally began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created by the Venezuelan government though the size of protests had decreased since 2014. Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, protests began to increase greatly throughout Venezuela.
  The opposition protests demanded immediate presidential elections to be held following controversy surrounding the failure to recall President Nicolás Maduro. The protests are listed below according to the month they had happened.
context_section_description: 1 August - Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma under house arrest  were dragged from their homes in midnight SEBIN raids and placed back into Ramo Verde Prison. The U.S. Secretary of Department of State Rex Tillerson on Twitter wrote:  "Or Maduro decides that it is unfeasible and wants to leave on his own count or we return government back to the Constitution."
  2 August - The Bolivarian National Guard seizes the Palacio Federal Legislativo in order to install the 2017 Constitutional Assembly of Venezuela. Smartmatic, the computing company that runs CNE's voting machines, stated that the results of the 2017 Constituency Assembly election were tampered with by the CNE.  The Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said: "We know, without a doubt, that the result of the recent elections for a National Constituent Assembly were manipulated," and added "We estimate that the difference between actual and announced participation by the authorities is at least one million votes". Reuters also reported that according to internal CNE documents leaked to the agency, only 3,720,465 votes were cast thirty minutes before polls were expected to close, though polls were open for an additional hour. The president Maduro stood by the official count of more than 8 million votes and said an additional 2 million people would have voted if they had not been blocked by opposition protesters. "That stupid guy, the president of Smartmatic, pressured to the neck by the gringos and the Britains, said there were 7.5 million [voters]", Maduro said in televised remarks. "I think there were 10 million Venezuelans who went out."  The CNE principal rector Tibisay Lucena dismissed Mugica's allegations, calling it an "opinion" of a company (Smartmatic) that played only a secondary role in the election and had no access to complete data. Julio Borges, the leader of the opposition-held parliament, said voter fraud was "the most serious crime that can be committed against democracy". Meanwhile, international pressure mounted on president Maduro as his country and government became increasingly isolated after Federica Mogherini, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs, said in a statement that the union would not recognise the new constituent assembly due to "concerns over its effective representativeness and legitimacy".
  3 August - South American bloc Mercosur begins to trigger its democratic clause to suspend Venezuela indefinitely furthering its past temporary suspension and not allowing the country to rejoin until the crisis is resolved.
  4 August - Antonio Ledezma was sent back home where he has been placed under house arrest and unable to express himself publicly. The 2017 Constitutional Assembly of Venezuela is sworn in and for its first act, dissolves the opposition-led National Assembly which had been elected into office in late-2015. The Constituent Assembly brings large portraits of Chávez and Simón Bolívar, placing them in the Palacio Federal Legislativo to show support for the Bolivarian government. A pro-opposition march intended to arrive at the Palacio Federal Legislativo was blocked by Venezuelan authorities who fired tear gas and shotguns at protesters. Earlier, the Holy See had asked the Venezuelan government to maintain the current Constitution and prevent or suspend the Constituent Assembly, which must be installed on the same day, and once again expresses its deep concern about the radicalization and worsening of the crisis in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, due to the increase in the number of deaths, injuries and detainees.
  5 August - Luisa Ortega Diaz was dismissed as Prosecutor General by the newly established National Constitutional Assembly. National Guardsmen block entry into the Public Ministry headquarters preventing Ortega Diaz, from entering the facility.
  6 August - Approximately 20 individuals led by fugitive Captain Juan Caguaripano's "41st Brigade" attack Paramacay Military Base near Valencia, Venezuela at 4:30AM VET, with a gun battle ensuing. By 8:00AM VET, about half of the attackers escaped from the base w
caption: Venezuelan troops following the recapture of Paramacay Military Base
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