Of around 30 protesters detained, only one — apparently a journalist who released videos of the chaotic protests — remained in custody Saturday, Alfredo Romero of the NGO Venezuelan Justice Forum said on Twitter. 

With tempers heating up over the woeful state of the economy, Maduro’s critics on Sunday pledged new mass demonstrations for the next two Wednesdays to build pressure for a recall vote, while a top socialist said no such referendum was possible before March. 

The incidents Friday, in the Caribbean island resort city of Porlamar, came just a day after anti-Maduro critics had mobilized a vast march filling the streets of Caracas.

The embattled Maduro — whose state-led leftist government is fighting crippling shortages of everything from hard currency to food and toilet paper — had gone to Porlamar to speak at the opening of a remodeled public housing development.

But social media images appeared to show an angry crowd surrounding Maduro, following him down a street, banging pots and insulting him.

Dozens of protesters were swept up in an ensuing crackdown, reports said. 

Information Minister Luis Marcano accused local media of exaggerating the protest, tweeting that the pot-banging “reflects what remains of the right (wing).”

– Growing support for recall -On Thursday, Maduro’s opponents claimed to have mobilized a million demonstrators in Caracas in the biggest rally in decades.

Jailed Maduro opponent Leopoldo Lopez said on Twitter that “the people made it known what they want… a recall vote, and change.”

The government, however, estimated that only 30,000 people attended.

Jesus Torrealba, executive secretary of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), on Sunday called for new mass protests on the next two Wednesdays.

He told private television network Televen that protests would continue until the National Electoral Council (CNE) set a date and specified conditions for collecting the four million signatures needed for a recall referendum.

Unless it does so soon, he said, the opposition “will protest in an energetic manner throughout Venezuela.”

But Diosdado Cabello, a former National Assembly speaker and a leading socialist, vowed to “mobilize our people” against a recall. 

He told Televen that “the recall does not have the slightest chance of being this year,” as the opposition demands, and would not occur before March. 

He has accused the opposition of seeking to provoke violence to justify a coup d’etat.

The latest rallies come at a highly volatile time for Venezuela, where a plunge in prices for oil exports has led to shortages, looting and violent crime.

The government in July put the military in control of food distribution, as well as key ports, companies and factories. Eighteen military commanders were named Saturday to work to alleviate the severe shortages.

– President in crosshairs -Maduro, the hand-picked political heir of the populist leader Hugo Chavez, won election in 2013 following Chavez’s death. But polls this year show growing support for a recall.

Despite sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuelans line up at dawn — or earlier — outside supermarkets, guarded by heavily armed police.

More and more people are buying scarce products from the black-market sellers known as “bachaqueros.”

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