THE Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) will challenge new electoral authority rules in court this week which threaten to exclude it from elections.

At the weekend the party denounced the new National Electoral Council (CNE) rules requiring parties to submit full membership lists for publication on the authority’s website — or be deregistered and barred from elections.

PCV member Yul Jabour said on Monday the party would seek an injunction against the rule from the Supreme Justice Tribunal.

Mr Jabour compared the CNE’s rule to the 1965 banning of the PCV under elected president Romulo Betancourt — when known members were rounded up by the security forces.

The party had previously been proscribed twice under military dictatorships from 1931 to 1941 and 1948 to 1958.

The PCV holds two seats in the opposition-controlled, 167-member National Assembly, and forms part of the Great Patriotic Pole bloc led by President Nicolas Maduro’s United Socialist Party.

Communist Party of Mexico secretary-general Pavel Blanco sent a message of “total solidarity with the glorious Communist Party of Venezuela,” via social media.

He recalled how the PCV had helped dispel distrust by communists of the Bolivarian movement led by late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and had “clarified its progressive role” but also its “contradictions and limits.”

Mr Blanco stressed: “Under no argument is it permissible for a communist party to be outlawed and deprived of its electoral rights.

“It would leave much to desire from the Maduro government if it acted against the PCV.”

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