One killed in Venezuela poll unrest
caracas — Deadly violence erupted around a controversial vote held in Venezuela on Sunday, with a candidate to the all-powerful assembly being elected shot dead and troops firing weapons to clear protesters in Caracas and elsewhere.
The unrest highlighted the tensions over the vote called by beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro in defiance of months of demonstrations and fierce international criticism.
He is gambling his four-year rule on the 545-member citizens’ “Constituent Assembly” empowered to dissolve the oppositioncontrolled congress and change laws as it reforms the nation’s constitution.
A candidate for the new body in Venezuela’s southeastern town of Ciudad Bolivar, 39-year-old lawyer Jose Felix Pineda, was killed from multiple shots fired by assailants who broke into his home overnight, prosecutors said.
He was the second candidate to be murdered, after the July 10 death of another, Jose Luis Rivas, as he was campaigning in the northern city of Maracay.
In the west of Caracas, national guard troops fanning out to put down any disruption to the election used armored vehicles and fired teargas to disperse protesters blocking roads. Video posted on Twitter showed troops smashing down a metal gate and entering to the sounds of gunfire.
Troops also violently moved against protesters in the cities of Maracaibo, in the west, and Puerto Ordaz in the east.
The opposition has called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election, which it calls a bid by Maduro to install a dictatorship with the backing of the military.
Four months of protests and violnce against the Venzuelan president and the new assembly have left more than 100 people dead. —