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Venezuela's opposition took control of Congress for the first time in 16 years on Tuesday in a rowdy session Cheap Minnesota Twins Jerseys , setting up a power struggle with President Nicolas Maduro amid a worsening economic crisis.


The Democratic Unity coalition won a two-thirds majority in December's legislative election by capitalizing on anger over a shrinking economy, soaring prices and chronic product shortages reminiscent of Soviet-bloc economies.


Maduro dismissed the new assembly as "right-wing" and filled with "dinosaurs" and said a cabinet change first announced a month ago would take place on Wednesday to shore up the leftist movement founded by late president Hugo Chavez.


Veteran opposition legislator Henry Ramos was elected the new head of Congress in a session in which the two sides chanted slogans at one another and traded charges of corruption and betrayal.


"What did we offer in our campaign? To recover the autonomy of the legislative branch," said Ramos in his opening speech to Congress. "This has been the loudspeaker of the presidential palace, the echo chamber of the executive branch."


Venezuela's frustrated opposition supporters were glued to television and radio sets, delighted as they watched top Socialist Party leaders being publicly accused of corruption and mismanagement.


Ramos flaunted the opposition's newfound control over the legislature by abruptly cutting off one Socialist Party deputy's diatribe against the opposition Cheap New York Mets Jerseys , saying he had run out of time.


When heckled by another socialist deputy over a procedural complaint, Ramos brushed him aside by saying "Take it easy, congressman, things have changed here."


Reporters interviewed deputies and walked freely on the floor of Congress for the first time in years, a practice that had been prohibited by the socialist leadership.


A portrait of Chavez that hung in the main congressional chamber Cheap Oakland Athletics Jerseys , a symbol of what critics call illegal politicization of public institutions, was removed.


"We have to quickly get used to the country's new political dynamics," Maduro said in a phone call to state television on Tuesday