A RIGHT-WING “general strike” held for 12 hours yesterday in a bid to put pressure on the socialist government drew little support from Venezuelans.

A handful of bosses closed their shops and traffic was a bit lighter in the capital Caracas but otherwise it was ignored.

“Your strike has failed,” the Socialist Party governor of Aragua state told leaders of the right-wing Mud coalition. “Nobody is going to support a coup.”

The previous day, Mud leaders had agreed to Vatican-mediated talks with the government.

This showed divisions within Mud but, in a sop to hard-liners, secretary-general Jesus Torrealba said it would continue to hold regime change protests and attack the government in the National Assembly.

Mud controls the assembly but judges have declared its decisions void until it kicks out three banned MPs.

Mr Torrealba said “street actions” would go on, including a march on the Miraflores presidential palace on Thursday.

Those actions echo the events leading up to the short-lived 2002 military coup against late president Hugo Chavez, which was defeated by the working class taking to the streets.

The talks are due to take place on Margarita island on Sunday.

Mud’s decision followed the declaration on Monday by Justice First leader Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda state and loser of the 2013 presidential election, that no talks had been agreed.

Three police officers were shot, one fatally, in Miranda on Wednesday during a Mud protest — another echo of 2002.

Meanwhile President Nicolas Maduro called for more firms to be nationalised in a bid to defeat a series of lockouts taking place in what appears to be a US-directed economic war.

“People here have a need to work and produce and we will not allow a Yankee model of destabilisation to instal itself here in Venezuela,” he said.

Mud MPs have also voted to begin impeachment proceedings against Mr Maduro, although they have no constitutional grounding.

Socialist MP Hector Rodriguez, who heads the pro-Maduro coalition in the assembly, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop the proceedings. Meanwhile hundreds of government supporters rallied outside the assembly building.