Venezuelan opposition leader says he is barred from office

Venezuelan opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Friday he has been banned from holding political office for 15 years, amid what critics say is a crackdown on dissent by the leftist government.

It was not clear why the government took action against Capriles, in a blow to the opposition after stepped-up protests this week and accusations that unpopular President Nicolas Maduro was leading the country to dictatorship.

The Venezuelan comptroller’s office has for a decade used a procedure known as “inhabilitation” that blocks politicians from holding office if they are deemed to have committed “irregularities” in managing state resources.

The government calls it part of anticorruption efforts. Opposition leaders say it is an arbitrary mechanism that allows the ruling Socialist Party to sideline popular politicians without due process.

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The national comptroller earlier this year said he was considering barring Capriles, who is currently governor of the central coastal state of Miranda, from holding office.

Over the last few days, authorities have also accused Capriles of fomenting violence and bloodshed by leading increasingly intense protests against unpopular Maduro.

Opposition protest

A ban on holding office would prevent Capriles from running for president again in elections currently scheduled for late 2018. It would also likely fuel anger ahead of an opposition protest planned for Saturday after a string of violent marches in previous days.

“URGENT: I inform the country and international public opinion that I am being notified at this very moment of a BAN for 15 years,” tweeted Capriles.

Capriles said earlier this week he was being investigated for allegedly receiving donations from the embassies of Great Britain and Poland and for spending state money on non-approved items.

A comptroller’s office spokeswoman said information regarding citizens being barred from office was provided only to the “relevant parties”. Being barred from office does not involve imprisonment, though authorities routinely accuse Capriles of conspiring against the government and fomenting violence.

The Capriles decision will likely stoke tensions in Venezuela, where more than 100 political prisoners are now being held, according to the opposition and rights groups.

Fellow opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, Venezuela's best-known prisoner, was himself barred from office in 2008, when he was the popular mayor of a Caracas district.

Business elite

Lopez had been expected to challenge late leader Hugo Chavez in the 2012 presidential election but handed the baton over to Capriles, who lost that vote and another against Maduro in 2013 after Chavez's death.

Maduro’s government has said that a US-backed business elite is responsible for Venezuela’s economic downturn and that it is trying to foment a coup to impose right-wing rule.

"Mr Capriles, you're trying to ignite the country," Socialist Party official Freddy Bernal said during a government rally on Thursday.

“You’re looking for deaths. Don’t then come like a sissy saying that you’re a political prisoner. Don’t then come crying that you’re being persecuted.”

Thousands of Maduro opponents marched on Thursday to protest a decision by the administration-leaning top court to assume control of the opposition-led congress in what demonstrators said was a lurch toward dictatorship.

While the widely-condemned decision was quickly overturned, the opposition has stepped up street protests against Maduro, even though such demonstrations have achieved little in the past.

Reuters