RIGHT-WING violence continued in Venezuela on Monday despite a deal to release opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez from prison.

A candidate standing in July 30 elections to the new constituent assembly was assassinated in broad daylight at a rally in Aragua state, west of the national capital Caracas.

Jose Luis Rivas was shot eight times at close range in the state capital Maracay and died at the scene. His killer reportedly escaped into the crowd.

United Socialist Party (PSUV) President Nicolas Maduro has convened the constituent assembly in a bid to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis.

But the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition, which dominates the parliament, has rejected the initiative and called an unofficial referendum on it this weekend.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Venezuela rejected the transfer from prison to house arrest of Mud-affiliated Popular Will party leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was jailed in 2015 for inciting the months of regime-change violence the previous year.

Communist Party politburo member Pedro Eusse said the concession to the opposition would only create impunity and encourage an increase in violence.

But he also criticised the Mud’s plebiscite call as forming part of its agenda of violence.

Almost 100 people have been killed in more than three months of rioting and terrorist attacks in support of the Mud aim of deposing Mr Maduro — more than double the death toll in the 2014 violence.

Earlier on Monday, several national guard troops were injured in a roadside bomb attack.

Several innocent bystanders have been burnt alive in the past month on the mere suspicion of being government supporters.

On Sunday, Public Defender Tarek William Saab denounced a “hate crime” by opposition militants which was photographed and posted on social media.

In Saturday’s attack in Caracas, an opposition hotbed, a man was beaten, stripped naked and tied to a lamppost with a tight cord around his neck and a handwritten sign above his head as a warning to others.

Mr Saab said: “This type of neonazism advances in giant steps in Venezuela. Its seed grows on fertile ground in our country.”