Venezuela's electoral authority Friday rejected as flawed a petition seeking a referendum on President Hugo Chavez's rule, delivering a blow to opposition hopes to try to vote him out of office this year.
But opposition leaders immediately announced they would collect signatures again early next month to repeat the request for a vote on the left-wing president's mandate.
The ruling by the National Electoral Council declared invalid more than three million pro-referendum signatures presented on Aug. 20 by foes of the populist ruler.
Opposition leaders, who had anticipated the negative decision, scheduled a fresh nationwide collection of signatures Oct. 5 to draw up another referendum petition.
"It's not the decision we were hoping for, but we're not going to stop in our determination to have a referendum," Carlos Ocariz of the opposition Primero Justicia party said.
Supporters of Chavez quickly countered by saying that Article 72 of Venezuela's constitution only allowed a single request for a referendum during a sitting president's mandate.
This heralded more intense political and legal wrangling in the world's No. 5 oil exporter, which over the last two years has been jolted by often violent conflict between followers and foes of former paratrooper Chavez.
The president, who was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, has resisted the referendum challenge and had insisted the opposition signatures were riddled with forgeries.
His opponents portray him as an apprentice dictator trying to follow in the footsteps of his friend and ally, Cuba's communist president Fidel Castro. He dismisses them as rich, resentful elites who fear his self-styled egalitarian "revolution" will rob them of wealth and privileges.
Hundreds of Chavez supporters outside the National Electoral Council in Caracas cheered the announcement by council president Francisco Carrasquero that the referendum petition was being rejected due to procedural errors.
"The National Electoral Council ... declares inadmissible the petition for a referendum presented Aug. 20," Carrasquero told reporters.
He said the electoral body would announce next week formal guidelines for a referendum process.
The opposition had collected the 3.2 million pro-referendum signatures back in early February at the end of a two-month general strike that battered Venezuela's oil-dependent economy but failed to force Chavez to resign. They presented them Aug. 20 during a huge anti-government march.
Carrasquero said they were invalid because they should have been collected after Aug. 19, the halfway point of Chavez's current term. He added the constitution only allowed a referendum petition after this date.
He also cited irregularities in the referendum request and questioned the legal credentials of the non-government organization, Sumate, which helped to collect the signatures.
Undaunted, opposition leaders said they would try to better the 3.2 million signatures collected in February. "Our goal is to gather 4.5 million next Oct. 5," Enrique Mendoza of the Coordinadora Democratica opposition coalition said.
The Organization of American States has backed the idea of a referendum as the best way to solve the crisis in Venezuela, which has dragged the nation into recession. The US, the main market for Venezuela's oil, has made clear it favors a poll.
RSS