Chavez is going to disrupt the petition drive and blame it on the opposition. Poll watchers from the Atlanta based Carter Center are standing by to evaluate the honesty of the recall. (Jimmy Carter never met a communist dictator he couldn't admire.)
Chavez has charged his militant Chavistas to watch for petition fraud and is putting 60,000 troops at 2700 polling places to watch for fraud. They will create chaos. He will not leave office democratically.
Venezuela's Chavez warns supporters of referendum their names will be remembered.***"They should know that although they are not going to get (a referendum), their names will be recorded. Unlike in a vote, which is secret, they will sign. They will put their names and surnames, their national ID number and their fingerprint," he said. ***
***Vanessa Roca, a 31-year-old secretary from the eastern state of Monagas, says she lost her job at a state-owned transport company after signing a petition calling for a recall referendum to remove Chavez from office. She traveled seven hours by bus to ask officials at the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to remove her name from the petition.
"A friend who had the same thing happen to him told me this might help me get my job back," she said. "I understand it happened to a lot of us."
As the Chavez government tries to remain in office, state employees and students who signed the petition, or who are suspected of sympathizing with the political opposition, are being purged from jobs, internships and grants, according to dozens of interviews with trade unionists, students, state workers, lawyers and human rights activists.
And in an effort to discredit the recall movement, state workers whose names appear on the petition are being encouraged by the government to sign legal complaints alleging that their signatures were forged. ***Source
……..Cabezas, 30, and el-Aissami, 28, are both radical "Chavistas" who emerged as student leaders at the University of the Andes in the city of Merida, about 300 miles southwest of the capital, Caracas.
The university city of Merida has for decades been a haven for guerrilla groups, both domestic and foreign. Venezuelan and Colombian guerrilla groups continue to maintain an armed presence at the university, with the alleged complicity of Merida state government officials, according to students and university officials.
Merida's governor is a former army officer close to Chavez, Florencio Porras. Cabezas was his private secretary until last year.
State officials deny the allegations. Even so, students and academics point to a dramatic upsurge in radical student activity during el-Aissami's two-year tenure as president of the student union. Prior to his departure in July, armed groups consolidated their presence in student residences, they say.
A report by the vice rectorate of academic affairs recently found that of 1,122 people living in a student housing complex, only 387 were active students. More than 600 are completely unconnected to the university.
While the university provides essential services at the residences, students have a say in room allocation and building security. Under el-Aissami's rule political control over the residences fell into the hands of extremists with criminal ties, according to students and university officials.
The current director of Student Affairs, professor Oswando Alcala, accused students under el-Aissami's leadership of turning the residences into a base for criminal activity.
"They use the residences to hide stolen cars. There's drug trafficking, prostitution," he said. "There are always weapons there. . . . They leave the residences, put on ski masks and do hold-ups in the street."
He added that the students appeared to have political backing. "All this is done with the full knowledge of the university and (Merida) state authorities," he said.
University directors had tried to intervene, but local judicial and law enforcement authorities declined to act, he said.
When Alcala voiced objections in May, students in ski masks surrounded his office armed with gasoline and tires, threatening to burn it down. A former guerrilla himself, Alcala scared them off, saying he wasn't afraid of a violent confrontation.
El-Aissami was soundly defeated when he sought re-election in July, with opponents winning more than 70 percent of the vote. After the election, the new student council found the union offices ransacked, with phones, fax machines, computers and files all missing.
The windows of the student union offices are still full of holes made by rocks and bullets during election campaign violence.
Cabezas and el-Aissami belonged to a radical group called Utopia, of which Cabezas was a founding member. It is suspected of links with a clandestine armed paramilitary group, the Bolivarian Liberation Forces, or FBL, which professes allegiance to Chavez. ***