Venezuela awaits ruling on Maduro ‘vote’

Caracas / AFP

Venezuela’s opposition learns on Thursday whether authorities will let them proceed with efforts to call a referendum on removing President Nicolas Maduro, whom they blame for the country’s fall from booming oil giant to basket case.
The National Electoral Board (CNE) must accept or reject an initial petition with 1.8 million signatures endorsing a recall vote against Maduro, whom the opposition accuses of driving Venezuela into economic and political chaos. Maduro’s opponents warn the country faces an explosion of unrest if authorities do not allow a recall referendum this year.
Enrique Marquez, the deputy speaker of the opposition-controlled legislature, said the referendum was the only “escape valve” for a country racked by economic collapse, hyperinflation, shortages of food and medicine, daily power outages and violent crime.
He urged the CNE to “get in step with history, with the suffering of the Venezuelan people, and remove the barriers blocking the referendum from being held this year.”
The opposition accuses the CNE of dragging its feet to protect Maduro, the political heir to late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez.
Maduro’s camp for its part accuses the opposition of massive fraud in its petition drive.
But even if the CNE accepts the petition submitted on May 2, Maduro’s opponents face a long and winding road to call a referendum.
And they may not get there by the crucial date of January 10—four years into the leftist leader’s six-year term—when a successful recall vote would trigger new elections rather than simply pass power to Maduro’s vice president. For the petition to be accepted, the CNE must recognize at least 200,000 signatures as valid.
If that happens, signatories must then present themselves in person to confirm their identity with a fingerprint scan. The CNE would then have to hand over the paperwork for the next stage of the process, in which the opposition must submit a new petition — this time with four million signatures, or 20 percent of the electorate.
Only after reviewing and validating this second petition would the CNE organize a referendum. The opposition would then need to gather more votes than Maduro won election with in 2013 —some 7.5 million—to remove him from office.

Waiting game
That adds up to a lot of ifs, and political analysts say the CNE could easily stall the process until next year, when Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) could orchestrate the unpopular president’s replacement by another party leader.
Polls show nearly seven in 10 Venezuelans want Maduro to go.
But the divided center-right opposition has struggled to rally a substantial protest movement against him or effectively wield the congressional majority it won last December, which has been hamstrung by a Supreme Court seen as loyal to Maduro.