Posted on 04/29/2004 5:51:00 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela, April 28 (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition warned President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday he would face a popular rebellion if he tried to delay or block a recall referendum his opponents hope to hold in August.
The opposition issued the warning after reluctantly accepting late on Tuesday an order by electoral authorities to reconfirm more than 1 million disputed pro-referendum signatures in a complex verification process scheduled for May 27 to 31.
In what analysts see as a daunting task, the opposition needs to verify the validity of at least 525,000 of the disputed signatures to obtain the 2.4 million signatures required by law to trigger a vote on Aug. 8 on Chavez's presidency.
Opposition leader Enrique Mendoza said he was confident voters whose signatures were questioned would turn out to ratify them next month in polling centers.
Repeating opposition complaints, he predicted left-winger Chavez and his allies in the National Electoral Council would intensify political and legal maneuvers to try to stop the recall referendum from going ahead. Chavez has dismissed the vote petition as riddled with forged signatures.
"We face an adversary who has a vocation for cheating and a referee (electoral council) that is far from impartial," said Mendoza, a leader of the opposition Democratic Coordinator coalition.
"If the government tries to delay or block the referendum after democratic society triumphs in the signature checks, the whole world will see a people fighting in the streets for elections," he said.
Pro-referendum protesters battled troops in Caracas and other cities in early March and at least nine people were shot to death in confused clashes and gunfights.
Opponents of Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, accuse him of being increasingly dictatorial and trying to turn the world's No. 5 oil exporter into a communist state like Cuba. He says his self-styled "revolution" aims to help the poor.
Many analysts predict Chavez, who survived a coup in 2002 and multiple opposition protests and strikes, will succeed in preventing the referendum, despite the risk of international condemnation.
"If he hasn't already won the battle, then he's winning it. He's spending money, increasing his populist strategies and he's in power. It's not easy for a democratic opposition," political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.
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