Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

VENEZUELA: Marches Calm Despite Tense Wait on Recall Vote Decision

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Feb 14 2004 (IPS) - Some 150,000 people marched along the Venezuelan capital’s main thoroughfare Saturday to protest the delays in verifying millions of petition signatures for a referendum on the mandate of President Hugo Chávez.

The protest, which was a confluence of marches from six points around Caracas, mostly middle-class residential areas, proceeded through the city without incident. The organisers decided against a route through the capital’s historic district in order to avoid confrontation with concentrations of Chávez supporters.

Tens of thousands of these "Chavistas" were gathered at a street market organised by the army along another central Caracas avenue, which was followed by a music festival marking the end of Venezuelan Youth Week.

The street demonstrations marked yet another measuring of forces between pro-Chávez and opposition forces. Thousands of police and military troops kept watch on the streets or were at the ready in their barracks, though there were no outbreaks of violence..

On Thursday, Venezuela’s Youth Day – anniversary of a battle in the war of independence that was won by young patriots – there were clashes between Chávez supporters and the opposition in three cities around the country. Several people were injured in the Venezuelan cities of Mérida, Barcelona and Valencia.

Fears of violence during Saturday’s opposition march were not born out.

The demonstration culminated with the presentation of thousands of photocopies of the petitions with voter signatures, the originals of which were signed in November and December 2003 to request that the National Electoral Council convene a referendum on whether Chávez should remain in the presidency.

The opposition coalition known as the Democratic Coordinator claims that it gathered 3.4 million signatures in support of the recall referendum, a million more than the minimum necessary, according to the Venezuelan constitution, which states that 20 percent of the electorate must be in favour of such a vote.

The Chávez government maintains that hundreds of thousands of signatures are not valid, that in some cases the petition sheets – to hold 10 signatures each – were filled out by the same person, and in many other cases that fingerprints were falsified, with some reportedly marking the sheet with an elbow.

At a Friday press conference, Chávez held up photocopies of what he said were irregular petitions. "As many as 30 percent were filled out in a way that constitutes massive fraud," and he said that if the electoral council validates these signatures and convenes a referendum he will appeal to the Supreme Court.

During the opposition march on Saturday the loudest chants were "My signature is valid!" and "Ooh-aah, Chávez must go!"

"Here it is. My signature is not imaginary and I put my thumbprint here, not my knee or my elbow," Elena Martínez, a shoe saleswoman carrying her photocopy, told IPS.

"Let them count the signatures however they want," said Andrés Rojas, a retired oil industry worker. "We will march as many times as necessary and we are going to win!"

Enrique Palacios, spokesman for the opposition group Súmate (Join Us), said they had handed out more than 304,000 photocopies of the petitions.

Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceño, whose job is under a city government that is in the hands of anti-Chávez politicians, estimated there were 400,000 people participating in the opposition march.

"We are marching as far as we can without entering into provocations, because the number of signatures that we have is iron-clad," said opposition leader Enrique Mendoza, governor of Miranda state, east of Caracas.

This time around in the series of marches and protests that mark Venezuela’s highly polarised political arena, the pro-Chávez demonstration was less fervent, with long queues of people outside the street market booths selling beef, chicken and vegetables.

"These are the things that President Chávez does that help us," one customer, Olgalinda Suárez told IPS. "We’re tired of the politicians who want to remove him."

Elías Jaua, leader of the governing Fifth Republic Movement, said that the afternoon of activities by the opposition and the Chávez supporters "proves that the citizens and the state institutions are in control and that there is no support for coup escapades."

Interior Minister Lucas Rincón and Defence Minister Gen. Jorge García reported that the situation across Venezuela on Saturday was one of complete normality and calm.

Vice-President José Vicente Rangel also underscored that "there was order and tranquillity in the entire country," and played down the anti-Chávez march, saying, "It is a matter of the invisible presence of the opposition."

He was referring to the "image wars", between the privately-run television networks, which support the opposition and on Saturday showed close-ups of what looked to be large crowds, and the state-run TV, whose aerial shots of the march showed gaps along the march route that were not filled with protesters.

The National Electoral Council, engaged in determining the validity of the petition signatures while under the watch of dozens of observers from the Organisation of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Centre for Peace, missed the Feb. 13 deadline, and says it will announce by Feb. 29 whether the recall referendums will take place.

In addition to the referendum on Chávez’s mandate, hundreds of thousands of voters also signed similar recall petitions for 61 of the 165 deputies in the National Assembly, involving opposition and governing party lawmakers alike.

The presidential recall referendum is seen as a race against the clock for the opposition, because if it takes place before Aug. 19 – the halfway mark through the president’s term – and Chávez loses, a presidential election will be convened. After that date, the vice-president would serve out the rest of the term, to end in January 2007.

In order for the opposition to win the recall referendum to remove Chávez from office, not only will it need more votes than those in favour of the president remaining, but the total must also surpass 3,757,753 – the number of votes with which he was elected in July 2000.