VENEZUELA will bring presidential elections forward to April, the national constitutional assembly has decided.

President Nicolas Maduro’s term does not end till the beginning of next year but Diosdado Cabello, chair of the United Socialist Party (PSUV), has thrown down the gauntlet to the opposition as a sign of the government’s confidence following impressive gains in municipal elections last month.

“If the world wants to apply sanctions to us, we will apply elections,” he declared a day after the European Union aped Donald Trump’s White House in slapping sanctions on senior Venezuelan officials.