VENEZUELA: Supreme Court Gives Recall Referendum a Green Light

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Mar 15 2004 (IPS) - The electoral chamber of Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered election authorities Monday to take steps that would, in the end, lead to a recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez.

But the president’s supporters immediately appealed to the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court, starting a legal battle even before the National Electoral Council (CNE) has presented the results of its efforts to determine whether the opposition collected enough valid signatures to trigger the referendum.

Adding fuel to the heated debate and mutual accusations, political parties on both sides called on their supporters to march on the Supreme Court in Caracas on Tuesday.

At the highest level of the judiciary, "a conflict is being set up between the different chambers, to be resolved by a decision by all 20 Supreme Court justices. But there is no solution in sight, because 10 of the magistrates are aligned with the government and 10 with the opposition. In other words, there is a tie," legal expert Carlos Escarrá told IPS.

The CNE, an independent body made up of five members – three of whom are pro-Chávez while two are aligned with the opposition – has not yet issued a final decision on the nearly 900,000 signatures whose validity was questioned.

The missions sent by the Organisation of American States and U.S.-based Carter Centre, which are acting as observers and brokers in the process, have not issued any statements on the matter.

The electoral chamber of the Supreme Court admitted the lawsuit filed by the opposition coalition – the Democratic Coordinator – and annulled the rules that the CNE had established for determining the validity of the signatures collected for the referendum.

The Court ruled that 876,017 signatures under observation should be considered valid unless the signatories step forward to withdraw their names.

The Court thus ordered the CNE to add the 876,017 signatures to the 1,832,493 that were declared valid, for a total of 2,708,510.

That is 11 percent more than the 2,436,083 valid signatures required by the constitution – 20 percent of the electorate – to request a recall referendum.

In talks mediated by the OAS and the Carter Centre, government and opposition representatives agreed in May 2003 to seek an electoral solution to the country’s deep political crisis, which already led to a short-lived April 2002 coup that overthrew Chávez for two days and a two-month general strike in December 2002 and January 2003.

After a four-day petition drive late last year, the opposition handed the CNE 3,447,000 signatures. But the election authorities, in a preliminary report issued two weeks ago, said it received only 3,086,000.

The CNE then disqualified 377,503 signatures, of which 143,930 were deemed invalid, while 233,573 were sent to a ”repairs period”, because the signatories had reportedly made an error in filling out the required information.

But the controversy erupted when 876,017 signatures were disqualified because the personal data of many of the signatories appeared in the same handwriting, leading the members of the council to vote 3-2 on a decision that the signatures had been falsified by opposition activists.

The CNE decision sparked protests in late February and early March, which were put down by the militarised National Guard. At least 10 died in the clashes, and around 100 were injured.

The CNE said a ”repairs” period would be opened up in late March to allow people to come forward and confirm their signatures, and government and opposition delegates, encouraged by the OAS and Carter Centre, engaged in negotiations on the precise mechanisms for that procedure.

Opposition leaders and independent analysts interviewed by IPS said it would be very difficult for hundreds of thousands of people to come forward to confirm their signatures during a repairs period that would last just a few days.

They said that what was needed was a decision to ask those who wished to have their names removed from the lists of signatories to come forward – precisely the procedure ordered Monday by the electoral chamber of the Supreme Court.

César Pérez, secretary-general of the opposition Christian democratic party COPEI, applauded Monday’s Supreme Court decision, saying ”thing look completely different now.”

"The CNE only has to organise the repairs period so that those who don’t want to be included on the list of signatories can withdraw their names, rather than requiring hundreds of thousands of people to come and confirm theirs."

Democratic Coordinator spokesman Enrique Mendoza read a statement Monday applauding "the recuperation of the state of law and the independence of the judiciary," and calling for "immediate compliance" by the CNE.

But Freddy Bernal, leader of the governing Fifth Republic Movement, said the party would immediately file an appeal to the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court for legal protection and a review of the electoral chamber’s ruling.

Pro-Chávez lawyer Jesús Caldera told IPS that "there are channels for addressing this grave injury to the constitution," and stressed that when the Supreme Court designated the members of the CNE last August, it gave them the power to establish the rules governing referendums because Venezuela has no specific legislation on the process.

But now, ”With a wave of the pen, the (electoral chamber) essentially ordered that the referendum be held," complained Caldera.

The opposition wants the recall referendum to take place before Aug. 19 because according to the constitution, if Chávez loses, new presidential elections would have to be convened. But after that date – the halfway point in the president’s term – the vice-president would serve out the rest of the mandate, which ends in January 2007.