Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is highly unlikely to face recall this year, after authorities Tuesday provided a detailed electoral calendar suggesting a vote might not happen until early 2017.
If the recall were to happen before Jan. 10, 2017, it would trigger new elections. However, if Maduro were to lose a recall vote after that date, his hand-picked vice president would finish out his term through 2019.
The opposition has been accusing the electoral body of dragging its feet on the process to protect the unpopular Maduro. And opposition leaders are planning a massive Sept. 1 march on Caracas to demand the vote.
National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena on Tuesday said the opposition was "wasting its time."
"This electoral power does not accept pressure from anyone," she told an audience of administration officials. "Our duty is to guarantee the constitutional rights of all Venezuelans."
According to her timeline, the opposition might be asked to collect 3.9 million signatures _ or 20 percent of voter rolls _ at the end of October. The body would then have 28 or 29 days to review those signatures and call a referendum. But the electoral body can schedule that vote any time during the next 90 days, making a January or February vote a possibility.
Lucena defended the schedule, saying that a 2004 recall effort against the late President Hugo Chavez took 319 days to organize.
Struggling through a deep economic, social and political crisis, polls show that a majority of Venezuelans would choose to oust Maduro, who narrowly won election in 2013.
