Pablo Perez, the former governor of Zulia State in Venezuela, says that he has been banned from holding public office for 10 years.

If true, Perez will be the third opposition politician to be disqualified from holding office in the South American country in the past week. As reported by the BBC, the state prosecutor's office previously barred Maria Corina Machado, a former congresswoman, and Vicencio Scarano, a former mayor, for a year. This keeps both politicians from running in December's parliamentary elections.

Perez, who was not running for a seat in parliament, has 15 days to appeal against the decision. As reported in Reuters, Perez tweeted that, "The government and the (ruling Socialist Party) have banned me for 10 years, another attack against democratic dissidence."

The opposition party feels that President Nicolas Maduro administration is trying to quash their chances before December's elections, as opinion polls have suggested that the current government could lose power.

In the past, the state prosecutor's office has barred politicians from office for alleged corruption or due to a lack of full disclosure regarding their declarations of wealth.

Aside from the three recently banned politicians, Daniel Ceballos, a former mayor who was jailed for not breaking up anti-government protests that took place last year in the city of San Cristobal when he was in office, was earlier this month barred from holding public office.

The banning of opposition party members is a reasonable action, according to Maduro, who maintains that the opposition politicians are responsible for more than 40 deaths nationwide during last year's protests.

Speaking to Bloomberg last month, Risa Grais-Targow, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said, “The elections won’t necessarily do much in terms of changing the regime or the policies.”

“If the opposition does well, I think the government will either tweak the results or shift power away from the National Assembly,” she said.