By The Associated Press

          CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Setting the stage for a constitutional
          showdown, Venezuelan lawmakers vowed Thursday to resist a
          constitutional assembly's order that virtually shut down Congress.

          Congressional leaders vowed to cut short their summer recess and
          reconvene Friday in a last-ditch effort to save their institution.

          On Wednesday, the assembly, which is dominated by supporters of
          President Hugo Chavez, banned the opposition-controlled Congress
          from passing laws and limited its duties. That ban came barely a week
          after the assembly also gave itself sweeping new judicial powers.

          Critics warned that one of Latin America's oldest democracies was in
          jeopardy.

          ``This is nothing more than the continuation of a coup d'etat,'' Jorge
          Olavarria, one of only six opposition delegates in the 131-seat
          constitutional assembly, told The Associated Press. ``Today there is no
          constitution, there is no Supreme Court, there is no Congress.''

          Chavez's supporters, however, say they simply are cleaning up some of
          the worst political corruption in the world.

          Assembly president Luis Miquilena warned that lawmakers would be
          blocked from reconvening Congress, though he didn't say how.

          Congressmen said they feared the National Guard would surround the
          Congress building or Chavez supporters would mass outside to keep the
          lawmakers from entering. If that happens, said opposition Sen. Timoteo
          Zambrano, Congress will meet elsewhere.

          On Tuesday, Supreme Court President Cecilia Sosa resigned after the
          court backed an assembly decree giving itself sweeping new powers to
          fire judges and overhaul the justice system. Sosa said the Supreme Court
          was ``dead'' and accused it of capitulating to the assembly.

          Assembly members said they would prevent Congress from meeting
          Friday because it planned to pass laws aimed at obstructing the
          assembly's work. Congressional leaders denied that.

          Congress has allowed the assembly to use its building since the assembly
          started meeting three weeks ago to write a new constitution.

          Chavez, a former paratrooper who staged a failed coup attempt in 1992,
          says a major shake-up of Venezuela's institutions is necessary to root out
          decades of bad government. Well over half the country's 23 million
          people live in poverty even though the country sits on more petroleum
          than any nation outside the Middle East.

          ``In Venezuela, democracy is being born. Venezuela is coming out of
          tyranny. The entire world should recognize that,'' Chavez said in a speech
          Thursday at Miraflores presidential palace.

          Chavez supporters, including his wife, brother and five of his former
          Cabinet ministers, captured 121 of the assembly's 131 seats in national
          elections last month.

          Despite a Supreme Court ruling in April to the contrary, Chavez
          contends that, as the nation's supreme power, the assembly can intervene
          in the other branches of government.

          Chavez says he is carrying out a ``peaceful revolution'' to replace
          corruption-riddled institutions with new, more democratic ones.

          But Chavez has also come under fire for concentrating power in his own
          hands and giving the army a bigger, more political role in society --
          appointing soldiers to top government posts, for example.

          ``Venezuela is marching definitively toward an authoritarian and
          absolutely totalitarian regime,'' Zambrano said.