27 April 2016•Update: 28 April 2016
By Maria Paz Salas
SANTIAGO, Chile
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) gave approval to opposition leaders to begin a process that could lead to a recall vote against President Nicolás Maduro.
The CNE authorized the collection of signatures, within 30 days, of 1 percent of registered voters. If successful, a second round of signature collection would proceed with 20 percent of voters needed.
The opposition, which controls Congress, had called for a nationwide protest Wednesday to demand the delivery of the forms that could allow them to collect the 200,000 signatures.
The coalition had been waiting since last month for that the CNE to provide the official form needed to collect to signatures.
“Now the country´s energy gets going to achieve democratically what´s in the Constitution, so we could have a referendum this year”, said Julio Borges, leader of the opposition bloc in Congress.
By law, the referendum against Maduro could be requested only when the president had completed at least half of his term, which occurred April 19.
The opposition is pushing for the referendum to take place this year that would enable the CNE to call for new elections.
If the measure is prolonged until next year, Maduro could appoint his vice-president to take office until the end of his term in 2019.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to block the possibility of shortening Maduro’s term from six years to four years, through a constitutional amendment.
Venezuela is grappling with severe economic and social crises that was reflected this week in rolling brown outs.
The government mandated electrical outages beginning this week for more than four hours across the country, but in many cases they were extended for more than 13 hours.
