CARACAS, July 7 (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has said all state workers must take part in a vote on July 30 for candidates to his controversial new superbody assembly, seeking to avoid an embarrassingly low turnout in a country seething with discontent.

Maduro has called for the Constituent Assembly, with powers to reform the constitution and supersede other institutions, in what he has said is an attempt to bring peace after three months of anti-government protests in which at least 90 people have died.

Opponents have said the leftist president is trying to formalize a dictatorship in the South American OPEC nation through what they view as a sham poll. They are planning a rival, unofficial referendum on July 16 to give Venezuelans a say on his plan.

Maduro has been trying to drum up his base, which mostly encompasses state workers and poorer Venezuelans.

"If there are 15,000 workers, all 15,000 workers must vote without any excuses," he told red-shirted supporters in the jungle and savannah state of Bolivar on Thursday night.

"Company by company, ministry by ministry, governorship by governorship, city hall by city hall, we're all going to vote for the Constituent Assembly. Do you understand? Do you agree," he said to a chorus of "Yes!".

Venezuela's roughly 2.8 million state employees, a sizeable part of the population of around 30 million, are often obliged to attend government rallies, and some have said they have already come under pressure to vote on July 30.

"This is crazy. (They're saying), workers who don't go to vote will be sacked," said one employee of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., asking to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to media.

"I'll vote, but null. I'm not going to vote for any of these nuts running for the assembly," he added.

A second PDVSA worker said company auditoriums were being used to give presentations about the constituent assembly.

"I'm worried ... but I'm committed to the cause and I won't vote," he said.

Many familiar faces of the ruling Socialist Party are vying for a seat, including former Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez and powerful party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello. Maduro's wife and son are also running.

The opposition has said Maduro's pressure on workers is another sign he is violating democracy. Opponents are calling on him to agree to elections to replace him amid a brutal economic recession that has Venezuelans unable to afford basic food and medicine.

According to a recent survey by pollster Datanalisis, seven in 10 Venezuelans are opposed to rewriting the constitution, which was reformed by late leader Hugo Chavez in 1999.

The Roman Catholic church has also come out against the plan.

"This congress has been pushed forward by force and its result will be to render constitutional a military, socialist, Marxist and communist dictatorship," Archbishop Diego Padron, who heads the main church authority Venezuela's Episcopal Conference, said on Friday.

The opposition coalition is hoping to further delegitimize Maduro's plans with their own vote, which will ask Venezuelans their views on rewriting the constitution, the opposition's alternative push for an election, and the military's responsibility for "recovering constitutional order."

Voting for the referendum will take place in some 1,766 sites and Venezuelans abroad, many of whom have fled Venezuela's meltdown, can participate, opposition lawmakers announced on Friday. University deans will oversee the process.

"This is a civic rebellion," lawmaker Freddy Guevara said during the press conference. "We're at a historic moment, I'm sure there will be a before and after July 16." (Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte, Eyanir Chinea, Diego Ore and Deisy Buitrago; writing by Alexandra Ulmer; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Frances Kerry and Diane Craft) </s> By Alexandra Ulmer and Andreina Aponte

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with workers at the Francisco de Miranda hydroelectric complex in Caruachi, Venezuela July 6, 2017. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

CARACAS (Reuters) - With many Venezuelans angry at the government and planning to sit out a July 30 vote for a new superbody assembly, President Nicolas Maduro has ordered all state workers to take part, seeking to avoid an embarrassingly low turnout.

After three months of anti-government unrest that has killed at least 90 people, Maduro has called for the Constituent Assembly, with powers to reform the national charter and supersede other institutions, in an election he says will bring peace.

Opponents plan a rival, unofficial referendum on July 16 to give Venezuelans a say on what they view as a sham poll by the leftist president, accusing him of trying to formalize a dictatorship in the South American OPEC nation.

Maduro has been trying to drum up his base, mostly state workers and poorer Venezuelans.

“If there are 15,000 workers, all 15,000 workers must vote without any excuses,” he told red-shirted supporters in the jungle and savannah state of Bolivar on Thursday night.

“Company by company, ministry by ministry, governorship by governorship, city hall by city hall, we’re all going to vote for the Constituent Assembly. Do you understand? Do you agree,” he said to a chorus of “Yes!”.

Roughly 2.8 million state employees, a sizeable part of Venezuela’s population of around 30 million, are often obliged to attend government rallies. Some have said they have already come under pressure to vote on July 30.

“This is crazy. (They’re saying), workers who don’t go to vote will be sacked,” said one employee of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.[PDVSA.UL], asking to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to media.

“I’ll vote, but null. I’m not going to vote for any of these nuts running for the assembly,” he added.

A second PDVSA worker, who supports the opposition, said company auditoriums were being used to give presentations about the constituent assembly. “I’m worried ... but I’m committed to the cause and I won’t vote,” he said.

CHURCH OBJECTS

Many familiar faces of the ruling Socialist Party are vying for a seat, including former Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez and powerful party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello. Maduro’s wife and son are also running.

The opposition has said Maduro’s pressure on workers is another sign he is violating democracy. Opponents are calling on him to agree to elections to replace him amid a brutal economic recession that has Venezuelans unable to afford basic food and medicine.

According to a recent survey by pollster Datanalisis, 67 percent of Venezuelans oppose the new assembly to rewrite the constitution, which was reformed by late leader Hugo Chavez in 1999.

The Catholic church has also come out against the plan.

“This congress has been pushed forward by force and its result will be to render constitutional a military, socialist, Marxist and communist dictatorship,” Archbishop Diego Padron, who heads the main church authority Venezuela’s Episcopal Conference, said on Friday.

The opposition coalition is hoping to further delegitimize Maduro’s plans with their own vote, which will ask Venezuelans their views on rewriting the constitution, the opposition’s alternative push for an election, and the military’s responsibility for “recovering constitutional order.”

Should Venezuelans overwhelmingly vote against Maduro, lawmaker Freddy Guevara said the opposition would call for a national strike to pressure the president.

Voting for the referendum will take place in some 1,766 sites and Venezuelans abroad, many of whom have fled Venezuela’s meltdown, can participate, opposition lawmakers announced on Friday. University deans will oversee the process.

“This is a civic rebellion,” Guevara said during the press conference. “We’re at a historic moment, I’m sure there will be a before and after July 16.”

Slideshow (4 Images)

State prosecutor Luisa Ortega has also broken ranks with Maduro over the constituent assembly. Amid an apparent bid to oust her, the Supreme Court named a deputy prosecutor, whom Ortega has rejected as illegitimate.

On Friday, the court-appointed deputy prosecutor entered the headquarters of the state prosecutor by hiding in the trunk of a car but was expelled by security personnel, a source at the prosecutor’s office told Reuters.

(This story corrects spelling to Nicolas from Nicholas in first paragraph) </s> CARACAS, July 7 (Reuters) - Venezuela's unpopular president Nicolas Maduro has said all state workers must take part in a vote on July 30 for candidates to his controversial new superbody assembly, seeking to avoid an embarrassingly low turnout in a country seething with discontent.

Maduro has called for the Constituent Assembly, with powers to reform the constitution and supersede other institutions, in what he says is an attempt to bring peace after three months of anti-government protests in which at least 90 people have died.

Opponents say the leftist president is trying to formalize a dictatorship in the South American OPEC nation through what they view as a sham poll. They plan a rival, unofficial referendum on July 16 to give Venezuelans a say on his plan.

Maduro has been trying to drum up his base, which mostly encompasses state workers and poorer Venezuelans.

"If there are 15,000 workers, all 15,000 workers must vote without any excuses," he told red-shirted supporters in the jungle and savannah state of Bolivar on Thursday night.

"Company by company, ministry by ministry, governorship by governorship, city hall by city hall, we're all going to vote for the Constituent Assembly. Do you understand? Do you agree," he said to a chorus of "Yes!".

Venezuela's roughly 2.8 million state employees, a sizeable part of the population of around 30 million, are often obliged to attend government rallies, and some say they are already coming under pressure to vote on July 30.

"This is crazy. (They're saying), workers who don't go to vote will be sacked," said one employee of state oil company PDVSA, asking to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to media.

"I'll vote, but null. I'm not going to vote for any of these nuts running for the assembly," he added.

Many familiar faces of the ruling Socialist Party are vying for a seat, including former Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez and powerful party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello. Maduro's wife and son are also running.

The opposition says Maduro's pressure on workers is another sign he is violating democracy. Opponents are calling on him to agree to elections to replace him amid a brutal economic recession that has Venezuelans unable to afford basic food and medicine.

According to a recent survey by pollster Datanalisis, seven in 10 Venezuelans are opposed to rewriting the constitution, which was reformed by late leader Hugo Chavez in 1999.

The opposition coalition is hoping to further delegitimize Maduro's plans with their own vote, which will ask Venezuelans their views on rewriting the constitution, the opposition's alternative push for an election, and the military's responsibility for "recovering constitutional order." (Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte and Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Frances Kerry) </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The CEO of the voting technology company Smartmatic said today results of Venezuela's election for an all-powerful constituent assembly were off by at least 1 million votes.

Antonio Mugica said results recorded by his systems and those reported by Venezuela's National Electoral Council indicate "without any doubt" that official turnout figures were inflated.

Smartmatic was created by Venezuelans and began providing electronic voting machines in 2004 during the presidency of the late Hugo Chavez.

"Even in moments of deep political conflict and division we have been satisfied with the voting process and the count has been completely accurate," Mugica told reporters in London. "It is, therefore, with the deepest regret that we have to report that the turnout figures on Sunday, 30 July, for the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela were tampered with."

President Nicolas Maduro's government announced late Sunday that more than 8 million Venezuelans had participated in the election for constituent assembly that will be granted virtually unlimited powers. His count was put into question by at least one independent exit poll, showing turnout was less than half that number.

The claim is certain to fuel further discord over the assembly, which Maduro has vowed to use to target his foes. Opposition leaders boycotted the election, arguing voting terms were rigged to favor the ruling socialist party. Nearly 7.6 million people voted in a symbolic referendum rejecting the assembly two weeks before the vote.

The assembly is expected to be sworn into office Thursday and the opposition is calling on Venezuelans to protest.

On Monday, two prominent opposition leaders were dragged from their homes by heavily armed security agents and thrown in a military prison Tuesday, drawing condemnation from the United States and some Latin American countries. But many other nations and international organizations were silent or limited themselves to expressions of concern. </s> Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro raised the stakes this week in his showdown with political opponents, ordering all state employees to vote July 30 for his new constituent assembly meant to write a new constitution and essentially crown him leader for life.

The latest arm-twisting by the government promises to heat up a more than three-month-old confrontation between the Maduro regime and thousands in the opposition, and which has already claimed 90 lives.

Maduro’s ballot-box demands came just a day after government forces allowed pro-regime thugs to storm into the National Assembly, the last bastion for the anti-Maduro opposition, and beat up opposition lawmakers.

In his attempt to remain in office, Maduro is looking to his base of state employees, and lower income Venezuelans, for support. But he’s not asking, he’s telling.

“If there are 15,000 workers, all 15,000 workers must vote without any excuses,” Reuters reported him saying in Bolivar on Thursday. The state workforce, which makes up about 10 percent of Venezuela’s population, has been coerced by the government before. In 2016, Maduro ordered a purge of employees at five key government ministries who signed a petition backing a referendum to recall the President from office. This time around, it seems state employees are once again being pressured politically.

“In theory, the vote will be ‘secret, direct, and universal,’ but there are always ways that the government can game the system,” says Moises Rendon, an associate director and associate fellow studying public policy issues in Latin America at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Government employees, the largest workforce in the country, are already threatened when they show signs of dissent.”

The big question now is whether the violence and tension in Venezuela will boil over into even more open conflict. Police and regime security forces have been clashing with protesters since the beginning of April. But the regime has also been eating its own: More than 100 soldiers have been jailed so far, AP reported, while Maduro’s own attorney general has defied the government.

On July 16, the opposition will hold its own informal referendum on Maduro’s planned new constitution, which could spark an even bigger crackdown from the regime. By the end of the month, with Maduro’s own vote, some experts worry Venezuela’s government could shatter into a pro-Maduro, new-constitution rump and an opposition-led National Assembly.

Unrest in Venezuela began on April 1 after the government-appointed Supreme Court essentially tried to take over the functions of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Though that move was mostly reversed, it galvanized fears that Maduro was dragging the country even closer to an outright dictatorship.

The contrast with Venezuela’s own past — or the present of some once-struggling neighbors, like Colombia — is stark. In the 1960s, Venezuela was a beacon of transparency and democracy — and wealth. With democratic presidents Rómulo Betancourt, Raúl Leoni, and Rafael Caldera, Venezuela became a role model subsequently copied throughout Latin America, and one that offered refuge for political exiles seeking freedom.

But years of economic mismanagement under former president Hugo Chavez and then Maduro, aggravated by a slide in global oil prices, have poleaxed Venezuela’s economy, giving it the world’s highest inflation and a dearth of food, medicine, and other basic goods.

Despite all the violence unleashed by the regime and the heightened political turmoil, it’s an unequal battle.

“We are not in a civil war, because of the fact that the opposition is not armed,” Rendon said. </s> Venezuelan Poll 'Tampered With,' Says Voting System Company

Enlarge this image toggle caption Ariana Cubillos/AP Ariana Cubillos/AP

The results of Venezuela's controversial vote to create a new legislature and give President Nicolas Maduro broad authoritarian powers were "tampered with," to change turnout figures, according to the CEO of the firm that provided the election system.

The news may support opposition charges that the results were inflated to add credibility to the vote, which established a National Constituent Assembly beholden to Maduro.

Speaking at a news briefing in London, Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said the results of Sunday's poll were off by at least one million.

"We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated," Mugica told reporters.

"We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the one announced by authorities is at least one million votes," he said.

"It is therefore with the deepest regret that we have to report that the turnout figures on Sunday, 30 July, for the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela were tampered with," he said.

Mugica said the company has recorded the correct figure, but would wait to release that information until a full audit is carried out.

Smartmatic, which produces electronic voting machines, started in Venezuela during the tenure of the late President Hugo Chavez. Since then, it has gone global and now serves elections in Venezuela and several other countries.

In a further statement on the company's website, Smartmatic says that the system used in Venezuela is "tamper evident."

"[It] self-reports any attempt to interfere with it. This means that the system is designed to protect the votes from any manipulation and to immediately identify and alert of such an attempt," the company says.

Venezuela's opposition and the White House have condemned the poll as a "sham election." NPR's Philip Reeves, reporting from Caracas Monday, saying that: "The election council - the electoral council in Venezuela claims that 42 percent voted. That's just over 8 million people. This is being met with derision, particularly by the opposition that says the number was closer to 2 to 3 million people." </s> LONDON (REUTERS, AFP) - Turnout figures in Venezuela's Constitutional Assembly election were manipulated up by least 1 million votes, Smartmatic, a company which has worked with Venezuela since 2004 on its voting system, said on Wednesday (Aug 2).

"We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated," Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said at a news briefing in London.

Mugica said Smartmatic, which has provided electronic voting technology for elections around the world, was able to detect the overstated officially announced turnout because of Venezuela's automated election system.

"We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the one announced by authorities is at least 1 million votes," he said.

Mugica declined to directly answer whether the manipulated turnout numbers changed the result of the election, in which authorities said 8.1 million people voted.

The election of the legislative super-body has been decried by critics as illegitimate and designed to give the unpopular government of President Nicolas Maduro powers to rewrite the constitution and sideline the opposition-led congress.

Mugica said the authorities in Venezuela would likely not be sympathetic to his comments and that he had not yet passed the evidence to the Venezuela's electoral council.

The National Elections Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to internal electoral council data previously reviewed by Reuters, only 3.7 million people had voted by 5.30pm in Venezuela's election on Sunday.

Venezuelan authorities did not respond to a request for comment on that reviewed data.

Officials said Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro plans to swear in a new assembly with extraordinary powers on Wednesday, as he moves to shore up his rule in the face of domestic resistance and international condemnation.

The 545 members of the so-called Constituent Assembly, which includes Maduro’s wife and son, were to be sworn in at a concert arena, the president’s press office said.

Assembly members will be seated Thursday in the main chamber of the now opposition-controlled National Assembly, the office said. </s> Well over 7 million Venezuelans cast ballots in an opposition-led referendum on July 16, a resounding rebuke of President Nicolas Maduro's call for a super-legislative body many see as a government attempt to entrench its power.

The turnout was well above what many expected and came despite the short notice for the vote, which did not have the same resources the National Electoral Council typically has for elections.

Nearly 700,000 of those votes came from Venezuelans abroad, where they voted at over 600 polling stations set up in 100 countries.

Now, however, the Venezuelan opposition is likely to face internal and external challenges — the former stemming from the at-times unwieldy coalition aligned against Maduro, including hardline radicals and disaffected government supporters, and the latter from a Maduro government that still holds considerable power and has shown little sign it will budge.

International support for the opposition and criticism for the government has been building in recent months, particularly since the end of March, when the Supreme Court, which is aligned with Maduro, made an attempt to assume the powers of the opposition-controlled legislature.

While the Supreme Court walked back that move, it sparked a period of protests that has now lasted more than 100 days and led to the deaths of more than 100 people.

"One of the more interesting things about this moment for the opposition is just how much international support they've been able to muster," Alejandro Velasco, a professor at New York University, told Business Insider about a week prior to the vote. "Certainly they've gotten far more attention than they've ever had and far more favorable attention than they've ever had."

Venezuelans abroad played a large role in organizing for the vote. While three months have worn down and frustrated many opposing the Venezuelan government, the success of the unofficial plebiscite is likely to buoy their spirits and burnish their international standing, even as Maduro has vowed to go ahead with the July 30 vote to select members of his constituent assembly.

"Overall this vote, I think, makes it difficult for the government to just proceed as planned," David Smilde, a professor at Tulane University and expert on Venezuela, told the Associated Press. "I think it's going to embolden the international community to reject" Maduro's constituent assembly.

The US, the EU, Germany, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico are some of the countries that have already called for the constitutional assembly to be canceled.

Over 90% of voters in the July 16 referendum voted in favor of the three questions asked by the opposition.

The third question began by asking the if voter saw the need for the "renewal of public powers" and for free and transparent elections but concluded with a more ambiguous reference to the formation of a national unity government "to restore the constitutional order."

That part of the question may present political and legal stumbling blocks for the opposition and its backers as events move forward.

The opposition had "been struggling to sort of find a message that says this plebiscite is actually, has some sort of foundation and that it isn't just about creating a parallel state," Velasco told Business Insider in an interview earlier this month.

The overwhelming support that the public mustered for the referendum may have freed opposition leaders of such reservations, however.

Lawmakers said the vote was a "trigger" to form a national unity government and to ask for global recognition before the end of July, according to Wall Street Journal correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev.

The naming of 33 justices to the Supreme Court in a rejection of the current court, which has been stacked by Maduro, appears to be one of the first steps toward that goal.

"This is where the law ends," writes a contributor to Caracas Chronicles, a website heavily critical of the Maduro government. "If we have two people for the same post, there's no mechanism to tell us which one is actually legal. A while back, the government blocked out all the strictly legal options, and it's time to go into uncharted territory."

Opposition leader and National Assembly Vice President Freddy Guervara said "the dictatorship accuses us of mounting a parallel state."

"Who usurps functions of the National Assembly to name the national electoral council and deputy attorney general?" Guervara added, referring to actions taken by the Maduro government. "We are the constitutional state."

But seeking international recognition for such a parallel government "could considerably complicate matters," Smilde writes. It would be "no small step for governments in the region and would likely take longer than the two week window they have before the" vote on the constituent assembly's members.

What the people want

It's also not clear what the broader Venezuelan public sentiment will be toward the establishment of such an alternative government.

Survey results released this month found that nearly 80% of Venezuelans wanted political change by way of elections, which Maduro has postponed, but there was no consensus on how to resolve to the current crisis: 33% of respondents wanted to wait for presidential elections in 2018; 25% said they saw dialogue as the solution, while 18% wanted a combination of dialogue and protest. Just 5% supported Maduro's constituent assembly. (The survey didn't ask about the opposition's referendum or the national unity government.)

The survey also found that only about 19% of Venezuelans said they had taken part in a march or protest in recent weeks.

While that number may be influenced by differing definitions for what constitutes a "protest" among Venezuelans, Velasco said, the divergent visions for moving ahead suggest that the opposition has thus far not be able to unite the vast swaths of Venezuelans unhappy with Maduro and that a broad range of Venezuelans remain unsatisfied with the visions that both the government and opposition have presented.

"So you have these varied factions, which speaks to these two poles that are very, very retrenched, and yet they can't really capture everyone else that's in the middle," Velasco told Business Insider earlier this month, "and so everyone else that's in the middle is going off in these various directions."

These domestic political questions seem unlikely to to shape looming international action, particularly the possible sanctions the US is contemplating, where the Trump White House has said that "all options are on the table" for penalizing the Venezuelan government.

"Venezuelan domestic politics, that's for the Venezuelan politicians and that's for the Venezuelan people to work out," Mark Feierstein, who worked for the Obama White House as special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, told Business Insider.

"It's not for the international community to decide who runs Venezuela, or who the president is, but it is the role of the international community to weigh in when people's fundamental rights are being deprived," Feierstein said.

The Trump White House didn't respond to a request for comment about its deliberations regarding sanctions on Venezuela.

The full impact of Venezuelans' resounding rejection of the Maduro government in the July 16 referendum has yet to unfold — as does the US's and international community's full response.

And events are likely to be complicated again by the July 30 constituent-assembly vote that Maduro says will go ahead. But for the opposition, the July 16 vote sent a clear message.

"We interpret [the results] as a message from the people telling us to keep doing what we have been doing, plus much more," Juan Andres Mejia, an opposition legislator who organized the referendum, told The Washington Post. "We will respond to that call accordingly." </s> Venezuela planned a vote Sunday to elect a controversial new legislative body whose creation has triggered international alarm and deadly street protests against the nation's beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro, who is struggling to shore up his regime, predicted a "big victory" in the election of the 545-member citizens' Constituent Assembly empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled parliament and rewrite the constitution.

But the opposition has urged a boycott, saying the vote was a move towards "dictatorship" by an unpopular president desperate to cling to power with the backing of a loyal military.

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.

Surveys by the Datanalisis polling firm show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly -- and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership.

Four months of street protests against Maduro have left more than 100 people dead, and exposed deep political divisions in this oil-rich nation reduced to economic calamity.

Demonstrations tapered off just before Sunday's vote after Maduro decreed a ban threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for protesters.

But fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region, and beyond.

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

Families of US diplomats there have been ordered to leave following the imposition of American sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Maduro -- who described the Constituent Assembly as a "card that will win this game" -- on Saturday said the vote was "the most important election held in Venezuela's political system."

>> Read more: Venezuela’s top prosecutor becomes Maduro’s most feared opponent

Authorities on the eve of the vote said all was ready for the nationwide balloting, although the head of the electoral council acknowledged some voting machines had been burned in attacks on polling stations.

Freddy Guevara, an opposition lawmaker, said further demonstrations would take place on Sunday.

"There will not be calm as long as the people don't have peace," he said.

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.

At an overnight protest in Villa del Rosario, a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border, hundreds of Venezuelans taking shelter there decried the election.

"We don't know what's going to happen in this situation created by this president," said one of them, Bella Buitrago, 48. "We're all extremely nervous."

"We don't want Mr. Maduro... he should leave the country," said another, Sindry Borges.

Some in Maduro's administration have broken ranks with him, most prominently his attorney general. Two diplomats resigned this week in dissent: one at the United Nations and another at the embassy in Panama.

The Venezuelan leader has blamed the mounting unrest against him and his policies on the United States, working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan opposition to wage an "economic war."
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says voting in his upcoming election on July 30 is mandatory for all 2.8 million state employees, with employees who do not vote facing ostracisation. Opponents of the government plan to hold their own unofficial referendum on the Maduro government on July 16.