CARACAS: Deadly violence erupted around a controversial vote in Venezuela on Sunday, with a candidate in the election and a youth opposition leader gunned down and troops firing weapons to clear protesters in Caracas and elsewhere.

“I don’t know where their hate comes from .... This is war!” one resident, Conchita Ramirez, told the Vivo Play television network as she described troops firing at buildings and people.

The unrest confirmed fears over the vote for a new “Constituent Assembly” 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’ body that will be empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled congress and change laws as it reforms the nation’s constitution.

A 39-year-old lawyer who was a candidate in Venezuela’s southeastern town of Ciudad Bolivar was killed from multiple shots fired by assailants who broke into his home overnight, prosecutors said, adding the motive was as yet unknown.

In a protest in the northeast town of Cumana, a 30-year-old regional secretary for a youth opposition party was shot dead in an anti-election protest.

The deaths added to a toll of over 110 people killed in four months of protests against Maduro and his plan.

In western Caracas, national guard troops fanned out to put down any disruption to the election, using armored vehicles, rubber bullets and teargas to disperse protesters blocking roads.

Four soldiers were wounded in a homemade-fireworks blast directed at them in the east of the capital. Soldiers also violently moved against protesters in the second city of Maracaibo, in the west, and Puerto Ordaz in the east.

The opposition had called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election, which it called a bid by Maduro to install a dictatorship with the backing of the military.

Maduro is ‘first voter’

Maduro kicked off voting by casting his ballot in a west Caracas polling station.

“I’m the first voter in the country. I ask God for his blessings so the people can freely exercise their democratic right to vote,” the president said. He was accompanied by his wife, Cilia Flores, who is a candidate to sit on the new assembly.

Turnout will be key to determining the legitimacy of the election. But that will be difficult to ascertain as most voters will be able to vote twice, because candidates were drawn from social and industry sectors as well as geographically.

Surveys by Datanalisis, a pro-opposition polling firm, show more than 70 per cent of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly -- and 80 per cent reject Maduro’s leadership.

Maduro decreed a ban on protests during and after the vote, threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for anyone violating the order.

International alarm

Fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region, and beyond. The US, the EU and Latin American powers, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, have come out against the election, saying it would destroy Venezuelan democracy.

Several foreign airlines, including Air France, Delta, Avianca and Iberia have suspended flights to the country over worries about security.

The US has ordered the families of its diplomats to leave after imposing sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Maduro has described the election as the most important Venezuela has seen, and the Constituent Assembly a “card that will win this game.”

Colombia and Panama — refuges for tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the chaos at home — have said they will not recognize the results of Sunday’s election in Venezuela.

The US has suggested further sanctions could follow. The oil industry is worried they could target Venezuela’s crude exports, 40 percent of which are bought by the United States.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2017