Venezuela recall calendar thwarts opposition
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has announced a timetable for a decisive initiative to trigger a recall referendum against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Critics say the CNE's timetable seeks to delay the opposition's move to topple the government through a referendum, which they aim to hold by the end of the year.
The CNE has already approved the first of two petitions required to organize a recall referendum.
CNE's president Tibisay Lucena said on Tuesday that the gathering of signatures for the second petition "would take place around the end of October" on condition that "all the regulatory requirements are fulfilled."
Lucena said that if the opposition gathered the four million signatures required to trigger a referendum, the CNE would then have a month to verify them. After that, she said, the CNE would have up to three months to hold the referendum.
According to the constitution, if the referendum is held after January 10, 2017, and Maduro loses it, his administration would remain in power and he would simply transfer his authority to a deputy of his own choice. The opposition does not want this. They want to topple Maduro and his administration.
The opposition says Maduro controls the CNE and accuses the government body of delaying the referendum procedures. Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles branded Lucena's announcement "an exercise in cynicism and lies." The CNE "does not dare to say (openly) that there will not be a referendum this year," he told a news conference.
Lucena responded by saying, "Harassing the electoral authorities and their employees is a way of trying to distort the constitutional path."
Luis Emilio Rondon, an electoral authority close to the opposition, said, "There is no legal, technological or logistical obstacle" that should prevent the signatures from being gathered before October.
Since 2014, Venezuela has been the scene of protests against Maduro, who is under fire by his critics, most notably the opposition, for causing the economic recession through mismanagement.
The government of Maduro, however, has denounced the opposition’s plans as a US-backed attempt to bring about a coup d’état in the oil-rich country that is home to 29 million people.
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