Venezuela's opposition Monday said it would resume marches and protests after the National Electoral Council stopped short of providing firm dates for a presidential recall, or any assurance that one might happen this year.
In a much-awaited, but anti-climactic, event, council President Tibisay Lucena confirmed that the the opposition had gathered and validated enough signatures (1 percent of enrolled voters) in May and June to proceed to the next step of the process.
Organizers had demanded that she announce when they could take that next step, which will require them to gather 3.9 million signatures, or 20 percent of registered voters, in three days. Once they do that, then, in theory, a presidential recall vote would be held.
The opposition accuses the socialist administration of dragging its feet, hoping to push the recall into next year. Only if President Nicolas Maduro is ousted before Jan. 10 would a new election be held. After that date, Maduro's vice president would finish his term through 2019.
The president and his allies have suggested the recall is part of a larger plot to illegally topple the administration.
On Monday, Jorge Rodriguez, a ruling-party mayor who is part of the administration's recall "verification" team, said the process was too riddled with fraud to be viable. He called the recall "legally dead" and said more than 8,000 lawsuits had been filed against it. He predicted it was only a matter of time before the courts scrapped it altogether.
Also Monday, Diosdado Cabello, a powerful ruling-party deputy, said the recall referendum "will never happen this year" _ and perhaps not at all.
Lucena confirmed that thousands of people who might have committed fraud by using fake names and IDs, or registering multiple times, would be investigated. The announcement is likely to revive fears that those who signed the first stage of the recall petition might be singled out for reprisals.
As Venezuela lurches through its worst economic, political, and social crisis in decades, many believe that cutting Maduro's term short and holding new elections is the only way out.
Opposition groups called for a march Wednesday to try to extract key dates from the Electoral Council _ something a similar march last week failed to do.
Henrique Capriles, an opposition governor and one of the proponents of the recall, has warned the government that it's playing with fire by hampering the recall effort.
"We don't know how the Venezuelan people will react if they're robbed of this constitutional right to vote and express themselves," he told a crowd of supporters over the weekend. Derailing the recall effort, he said, "could put Venezuela on the edge of a social explosion, which nobody wants."
