| |
|
|
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's elections council ruled yesterday that the opposition lacked enough signatures to force a recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez. Rioting over the issue spread from Caracas to other cities.
Chavez opponents say they submitted more than 3.4 million signatures. About 2.4 million are needed for a recall election.
But council President Francisco Carrasquero announced that just 1.83 million signatures were valid. An additional 876,016 signatures might be valid - if citizens confirm that they indeed signed the petition, Carrasquero said.
The council said voters whose signatures were under dispute would have March 18-22 to report to voting centers to confirm they had signed the petition.
Venezuela's opposition claims that such a monumental task, involving hundreds of thousands of citizens, could indefinitely postpone the referendum or derail it entirely.
Even before the announcement, protests surged as the opposition anticipated it. National guard troops in armored personnel carriers rolled through several cities as demonstrators burned tires and hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at soldiers.
Protests were reported in at least 10 other cities, including the industrial centers of Valencia and Barquisimeto and the western oil city of Maracaibo.
Chavez's foes have been blocking traffic throughout Caracas since Friday to protest what they view as a government plot to derail the referendum - their last chance of legally ousting Chavez before the next elections in 2006.
At least one person has been killed and 60 wounded since Friday. Dozens have been arrested.
Venezuelans had been waiting since Sunday for the council to release its findings.
The opposition tried to dislodge Chavez, a populist leftist first elected in 1998, through a short-lived coup in 2002 and a general strike that dragged on for two months last year.
Prodded by the Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center, the government and the opposition agreed in May on ground rules for a recall referendum.
The petitions were delivered in December. But electoral authorities delayed an announcement on whether the recall effort could go ahead.
If Chavez loses in a referendum held before mid-August, the midway point for his term, new presidential elections must be held. But if he loses in a vote held after mid-August, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel would take over for the rest of his term.
Opponents fear if that happens, Chavez would merely rule behind his right-hand man for the rest of his term, which ends in January 2007.
The opposition accuses the elections council of belatedly changing the rules to disqualify hundreds of thousands of signatures. The council says observers were told not to allow voters to simply sign already filled-out forms. But thousands of signatures were delivered that way.
Still, the OAS, Carter Center, Argentina, Brazil and other countries have urged Venezuela to overlook glitches and respect the apparent will of voters. Chavez - re-elected to a six-year term in 2000 - rejects their pleas as foreign interference and insists the petition is invalid because of fraud.
Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun
