One person was killed on Monday in protests demanding a recall vote to remove President Hugo Chavez, as electoral authorities postponed announcing whether a recall referendum will be held until midday yesterday.
Soldiers killed the protester during an anti-Chavez rally in Caracas, said Juan Fernandez, a spokesman for the opposition Democratic Coordinator umbrella group.
Since Friday five people have been killed and about 100 injured in political unrest.
Chavez foes were out in the streets on Monday and burning barricades blocked many streets, especially in southeastern Caracas.
In violent unrest on Sunday at least 30 people were seriously hurt. Firefighters treated another 230 for minor injuries.
The number of signatures calling for a referendum has actually been known since Saturday, Jorge Rodriguez, a member of the National Electoral Council (CNE), said in a late Monday press conference.
However it was not to be made public until midday yesterday. The results of the signature-collecting campaign were originally supposed to be made public on Sunday.
The pause "enables us all to reflect" and study the outcome within a democratic framework and without violence, he said. "With humility and patience, the CNE tries to maintain the players ... in the democratic game," he added.
Late Monday National Guard police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up anti-government protesters gathered in the Plaza Altamira, an opposition hotbed in eastern Caracas.
Protesters flooded the area after the postponement was announced, banging on pots and hurling rocks and fireworks at the police.
Military police also stood watch over a main east-west highway in the capital.
Police in upper- and upper-middle class districts to the east and southeast of Caracas, where many anti-government protests have been held, report to mayors who oppose Chavez's government. In some cases they have patrolled without stepping in as demonstrators burned trash, hurled molotov cocktails and in some cases opened fire with handguns.
But "this is not a protest by the rich, by the upper class. There already has been looting," said lawmaker Henry Ramos, a Social Democrat.
Protests turned violent on Sunday after the main opposition umbrella group said it rejected the authority of the National Electoral Council because it said it was reviewing the legality of more than one million of the 3.4 million signatures the opposition says it gathered in favor of having a recall referendum set.
The constitution requires a minimum of 2.4 million valid signatures. So the council's decision, if it were to disqualify the questioned signatures, would take the total to a potentially razor-thin margin between a green light and a red light for a recall vote. The government has claimed fraud was widespread in collecting the petitions.
At a rally Sunday, the president told some 60,000 cheering supporters he would block US access to Venezuela's oil resources if Washington moves against his government.
In a three-hour anti-US diatribe that singled out US President George W. Bush as an illegitimate leader, Chavez said "if Mr Bush is possessed with the madness of trying to blockade Venezuela, or worse for them, to invade Vene-zuela in response to the desperate song of his lackeys ... sadly not a drop of petroleum will come to them from Venezuela."
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