AKIPRESS.COM - The US government has branded Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro "a dictator" and frozen any US assets, after he held a controversial poll, BBC reports.

Under the sanctions, US firms and individuals are banned from doing business with Mr Maduro.

The election of a constituent assembly on Sunday was held amid mass protests. At least 10 people were killed.

Mr Maduro said the poll was a "vote for the revolution", saying "sanctions from the empire don't scare me".

"The emperor Donald Trump took decisions against me that show his desperation and hate," President Maduro said in a televised speech on Monday.

"I don't obey orders from foreign governments and never will... Sanction me as you wish, but the Venezuelan people have decided to be free and I am the independent president of a free nation."

Venezuela's new constituent assembly will have the power to rewrite the constitution and disband the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

The opposition coalition, which boycotted the election, said 88% of voters had abstained. It has refused to recognise the election. Electoral officials said the turnout was 41.5%.

Protesters have blocked a number of roads in the capital, Caracas.

A march scheduled for later on Monday to honour those killed on polling day appears to have been postponed until Wednesday, the day that the constituent assembly is due to meet.

Venezuela's attorney general, Luisa Ortega, a vocal critic of the Maduro government, called the vote an expression of "dictatorial ambition".