Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calmly welcomed news that he would likely face a recall referendum on his rule, saying those who accuse him of steering Venezuela into dictatorship have been proven wrong.
Still, the prospect of a vote promised to plunge deeply polarized Venezuela -- the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, into a turbulent new phase of an escalating power struggle.
"I accept the challenge," Chavez said in a nationally televised address hours after the National Elections Council projected that opposition leaders had gathered enough signatures to force the vote.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"I hope that some people realize -- if they are still confused -- that Hugo Chavez is not the tyrant some say he is," Chavez said.
`enough signatures'
Thursday's announcement capped months of wrangling over the recall petition. Venezuela's opposition insisted election authorities did all they could to derail a vote, while Chavez insisted his foes resorted to fraud to gather signatures.
Chavez acknowledged for the first time Thursday that any fraud was not widespread enough to affect the results.
"They simply gathered enough signatures. Let's accept that," he said.
Chavez's opponents accuse the former paratroop commander of gradually imposing an authoritarian government. Supporters applaud his far-reaching social programs for Venezuela's poor majority.
Thousands of Chavez supporters rallied outside the presidential palace, chanting: "Oh no! Chavez won't go!"
The president assured them he would win a vote and warned his opponents: "It's not good to sing victory ahead of time."
Elections council director Jorge Rodriguez said a count of roughly 40 percent of voter signatures indicated Chavez opponents had gathered 2,451,821 signatures on petitions to demand the referendum -- surpassing the required 2,436,083 signatures.
Opposition leaders cheered and hugged each other at their headquarters, celebrating their first victory after a string of defeats that including a botched 2002 coup and a two-month general strike last year that failed to topple Chavez but ruined the economy.
"We did it!" said Enrique Mendoza, leader of the Democratic Coordinator coalition.
Chavez said he hoped the prospect of a democratic vote would deter future attempts to overthrow his leftist government.
fraud investigations
"US President George W. Bush is the true instigator of all these movements," Chavez alleged, repeating a refrain which Washington routinely denies.
"I'm happy that instead of coups, the opposition is planning a democratic referendum," he said.
Political violence gripped parts of the capital Thursday.
Chavez supporters set trucks ablaze, severely beat opposition lawmaker Rafael Marin outside Congress and fired on the offices of Caracas' opposition mayor, Alfredo Pena.
They also fired shots at El Nacional newspaper and Radio Caracas Television and ransacked the offices of Asi es la Noticia newspaper.
One police officer died after being hit by a vehicle fleeing the violence, said Caracas police chief Lazaro Forero.
For a recall to succeed, more citizens would have to vote against Chavez than the 3.76 million people who re-elected him to a six-year term in 2000.
The elections council also approved recall referendums against nine opposition lawmakers, Rodriguez said. He did not announce dates for the votes.
More than 2.4 million signatures -- 20 percent of the electorate -- are needed to trigger a recall vote on Chavez. Activists say they turned in more than 3.4 million signatures in December.
The elections council accepted 1.9 million signatures, rejected another 400,000 and ordered more than 1 million citizens to confirm last weekend that they had signed the petition.
Government supporters claimed the opposition used thousands of fake ID cards to bolster its total number of signatures. Several government investigations into alleged fraud were continuing.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS