'Fraud' in Chavez recall poll
2004-02-13 14:20
Caracas, Venezuela - A top election official said on Thursday that authorities have found irregularities in a petition for a recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez and they may need several more weeks to decide on its validity.
National Elections Council director Jorge Rodriguez said the council has set aside an unspecified number of signatures to be reviewed again and would not be ready to announce a decision in time for Friday's deadline.
He said the council was "doing everything possible" to rule by the end of the month.
Rodriguez said thousands of petition sheets could be thrown out because staff at sign-up centres had filled out basic personal information themselves - and then asked citizens to sign them.
Election officials are at odds over whether that procedure constitutes a violation of election rules. The elections council is divided between three directors - including Rodriguez - widely considered sympathetic to Chavez and two seen as pro-opposition.
Mounting tensions
Two small protests in separate Venezuelan cities turned violent on Thursday, underscoring mounting tensions between allies and adversaries of the leftist president as the council prepares to decide on the validity of the petitions.
Opponents accuse the council of deliberately delaying the verification process. It has been almost two months since they submitted what they claimed were 3.4 million signatures to demand the recall - far more than the 2.4 million needed to trigger the vote.
Fifteen police officers were hurt in a clash with university students protesting the delays in the city of Merida, about 500km west of Caracas, said Merida Fire Chief Enrique Zambrano. Four students and a journalist were also injured, he said.
Police chief Jose Ibarra said the students attacked police with gunfire and threw rocks.
In the city of Valencia Chavez supporters fought with opposition marchers. Police trying to separate the two sides also fought off a group of students who hijacked 12 public buses to protest a rise in fares and the arrest of eight fellow demonstrators.
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel accused "desperate" Chavez opponents of provoking chaos "because they definitely did not get the signatures" needed.
Government opponents planned a march on Saturday on the National Electoral Council, where dozens of "Chavistas" are camped and ready for confrontation.
Opponents claim Chavez, a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro who was re-elected to a six-year term in 2000, of steering Venezuela toward communism as he rides roughshod over the nation's democratic institutions.
Chavez denies the allegations and argues that his efforts to improve living conditions for the poor have been misinterpreted. He has vowed to defeat a possible recall vote and win the next scheduled presidential elections in 2006.
- AP