VHeadline commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: Bourgeois reactionaries will go all over the world to tell lies and calumnies about the exercise of power in Venezuela. They defame Venezuelan democracy, Hugo Chavez, anything else or anybody else that enters their mind while they tell their lies.

The latest example of this lamentable phenomenon is Leopoldo Lopez, a former mayor of one of the five municipalities of Caracas and former candidate for the mayor of Metropolitan Caracas until he was disqualified as a metro candidate on corruption charges, among others grounds.

Leopoldo Lopez spoke, Tuesday, March 24, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington D.C., alleging falsely that he "was never charged in court and maintains the charges are politically motivated. And he argued that Venezuela only bars people with criminal convictions from running for office."

Politically motivated! By whom?

One of the forces for his disqualification was a fellow bourgeois oppositionist who won the race for mayor of metro Caracas over the revolutionary candidates. "Venezuela only bars people with criminal convictions from running for office," Lopez told this big flat-out to the Commission which listened to him lie for whole hour on Tuesday.

It is true that Venezuela bars people with criminal convictions from running for office like almost every other democratic state in the world. But it is false ... and Leopoldo Lopez knows it ... that Venezuela "ONLY" bars people with criminal convictions from running for office. The truth is that criminal conviction is only one of many grounds in Venezuela that disqualifies people from running for office.

What Lopez seems to be lying about is Article 65 of the Constitution which, in full, reads: "Persons who have been convicted of crimes committed while holding office or other offenses against public property, shall be ineligible to run for any office filled by popular vote, for such period as may be prescribed by law after serving their sentences, depending on the seriousness of the offense."

• Clearly, criminal conviction is a ground for candidate disqualification ... but there is absolutely nothing in Article 65 that elevates this provision of the Constitution into the exclusive ground for disqualification.

The Constitution has other articles on candidate disqualification and some these, like Article 177, apply specifically to the office which Lopez ran for. Article 177, in full, reads "Principles, residence requirements and conditions, prohibitions, grounds for disqualification and conflicts of interest for the candidacy and exercise of the functions of mayors and councilmen members may be established by national law. "

Are we to be believe that Lopez can't be disqualified on "residence requirements and conditions" unless he is first criminally convicted for the NON-CRIME of living in the wrong place? Are we to believe that Lopez can't be disqualified on "conflicts of interest" grounds unless he is first unjustly convicted for the NON-CRIME of conflict of interest?

So on and so forth with the other grounds listed 177.