Venezuela clashes kill 3 during anti-Maduro general strike

Three people have been killedin clashes between Venezuelan security forces and protestersduring an opposition-led strike against President Nicolas Maduro, which entered itssecond day on Thursday.

At least 106 people have died in total during anti-government unrest convulsing the South American OPEC nation since the opposition launched protests in April demandingelections to end nearly two decades of socialist rule.

Many streets around Venezuela remained barricaded anddeserted during the second day of an opposition-led shutdown.

Plenty of rural areas and working-class urban neighborhoodswere bustling, however, as the 48-hour strike call appeared lessmassively heeded than a one-day shutdown last week.

"People are working out of necessity," said coffee sellerJose Vazquez, 46, in Caracas though he had fewer customers thanusual and there was little traffic on the streets around him.

The strike aims to pressure Maduro into cancelling acontroversial vote for a new congress at the weekend.

Adversaries say the ruling Socialist Party wants toconsolidate dictatorship with a sham vote for the super-congress
that will have the power to rewrite the constitution and shutdown the existing opposition-led legislature.

Worldwide condemnation

The international community has broadly condemned the vote,and the United States on Wednesday announced sanctions against13 current and former officials for corruption, underminingdemocracy, and participating in repression.

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Maduro says he is going ahead with Sunday's election for theConstituent Assembly as the only way to empower the people andbring peace to Venezuela.

The Venezuelan prosecutor's office said on Thursday that a23-year-old man was killed in western Merida state and a
16-year-old boy died in the poor Caracas neighborhood of Petareduring clashes on Wednesday.

That added to the previously announced death of a30-year-old man, also in mountainous Merida state.

More than 170 people have been arrested during the strike sofar, a local human rights group said.

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Government officials and candidates for the ConstituentAssembly were winding up campaigning on Thursday, with a rallyplanned for Caracas later in the day to be attended by Maduro.

Election on Sunday

Voters on Sunday will choose 364 constitutionalrepresentatives distributed across municipalities and statecapitals andanother 181 "sectoral" candidates from demographicgroups ranging from students to farmers and fisherman.

The opposition Democratic Unty coalition is boycotting thevote. They say the use of sectoral candidates, who had to
collect signatures and file them to the government-leaningelections council, was a way to weed out anti-governmentaspirants.

Critics also note the lopsided representation of ruralareas, where the Socialist Party has historically beenstrongest, at the expense of the opposition-leaning cities.

The country's least-populated state of Amazonas will electeight representatives to the assembly while the capital of
Caracas will choose only seven, according a document about thevote posted on the National Electoral Council's website.

State demographics agency INE data shows Amazonas having apopulation of 188,000 and the municipality of Caracas 2.1million.