Posted on 01/23/2003 2:16:31 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Chavez opponents want him to go now The Supreme Court in Venezuela has suspended an opposition-backed referendum due next month on whether the country's embattled President, Hugo Chavez, should resign.
The electoral authorities had set the vote for 2 February after the opposition collected more than two million signatures demanding a referendum on the president's rule.
The decision seems set to inflame tensions between Mr Chavez and his opponents - now in their eighth week of a strike that has crippled oil output in the world's fifth biggest exporter.
Amid increasing capital flight and a slide in the currency, the government announced on Wednesday that Venezuela's currency markets would be closed for five days.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the National Electoral Council to suspend the referendum and refrain from organising any other elections.
However, the electoral authorities insisted the effect of the court's ruling was to "freeze" but not cancel the referendum.
Voters would have been asked whether or not Mr Chavez should step down.
Carter proposals
The result would not have been legally binding, but the president's opponents hoped a resounding defeat would have embarrassed him into calling early presidential elections.
Mr Chavez has always insisted that his foes should wait until August when a constitutionally binding referendum could be held to decide whether he should stand down.
That was one of the proposals put forward on Tuesday by former US President Jimmy Carter, to try to end Venezuela's political deadlock.
Another proposal was to amend the constitution to allow early elections, cutting the presidential term from the current six years.
Both the government and opposition are studying the proposals.
But the BBC's Adam Easton in Caracas says the Supreme Court's decision could prevent any agreement being reached soon.
Opposition leaders condemned the court's ruling as biased and a sign of the government's control of the courts.
"The government is just blocking and blocking all the democratic avenues," opposition negotiator Timoteo Zambrano told Reuters.
Vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel said the opposition had no legal basis to go ahead with the vote.
"We had always refused to recognise it, but now the Supreme Court has confirmed our position," he said.
Pedestrians flee tear gas fired by metropolitan police officers to disperse protesting high school students in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2003. Police and student supporters of President Hugo Chavez clashed after students threw rocks at a police station. The police said no one was injured in the clashes.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
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Scumbag hypocrites. There aren't enough walls to line these mf'ers up against.
Most Venezuelans want for their Generalissimo to assume room temperature. Chavez wants only oil revenues to flow into his Swiss accounts. Capitalism with one owner.
Agreed. Unfortunately, we let the moment pass when we could have done it easily. Heck, even the Venezuelans could have done it easily last April, but they were still trying to behave like people dealing with a rational man, something which Chavez clearly is not.
I have a terrible feeling you are right.
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