Chavez Foes Petition for Early Venezuela Elections
reuters.com Sun February 2, 2003 11:35 AM ET By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez turned out in large numbers on Sunday to cast a symbolic vote against him, signing a petition for early elections after opposition leaders said they were scaling back a two-month strike.
The opposition was hoping well over a million people would take part in the campaign organized as a national poll. It was the latest challenge against left-winger Chavez nine weeks after the start of a grueling strike that has jolted the economy but failed to force the populist president to resign.
Oil workers whose walkout has slashed output by the world's No. 5 oil exporter were maintaining their protest. But other non-oil sectors were rolling back their support for the strike because of the damage to business and jobs.
Squeezed by the cutback in its oil income, the government has announced budget cuts and foreign exchange controls.
At hundreds of stations set up in schools, plazas and streets across the nation, long lines formed as citizens turned out to sign petitions seeking early elections, opposing Chavez and his government and supporting the oil strikers.
"I'm here because of the bad state the country is in. The government and the president are no good. Let's see if we can finally get out of this situation in a democratic way," 46-year-old waiter Bernardo Uribe told Reuters as he signed.
The main petition requested a constitutional amendment to shorten Chavez's rule and trigger immediate elections. Chavez, who survived a coup last year and still commands support among the nation's poor majority, was elected in 1998 and is due to end his term in early 2007.
To trigger the constitutional mechanism for an early poll this year, the opposition needs to collect the signatures of at least 15 percent of the nation's nearly 12 million voters -- around 1.8 million signatures. Chavez has rejected the early poll, saying the opposition must wait until August when the constitution would allow a binding referendum.
Chavez, who says he has beaten the strike and is gradually restoring oil production, has made clear he will not support the constitutional amendment. But he accepts it as legal and government negotiators are considering their response.
At one opposition signing station in central Caracas, Chavez supporters threw stones and traded insults with foes of the president but police kept the two sides apart.
INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
The opposition campaign followed an appeal on Friday by a six-nation "group of friends" for a democratic, electoral solution to end the crisis, which has rocked world oil markets already nervous over a possible U.S. war on Iraq.
Envoys from the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Spain and Portugal had held talks in Caracas with Chavez and his opponents, urging them to settle their differences peacefully in negotiations brokered by the Organization of American States.
Seven people have been killed and dozens wounded in shootings and clashes since the strike began Dec. 2.
Outside the oil sector, support for the strike has slipped. Many shops, businesses and restaurants, facing bankruptcy after staying closed over Christmas, have reopened, and private banks are due to resume normal operations on Monday.
Chavez, who staged a botched coup bid six years before winning elections, is accused by his opponents of trying to install Cuba-style communism.
He condemns his striking foes as a rich, resentful elite trying to topple him because their privileges are threatened.
The opposition organized Sunday's signing after the Supreme Court suspended a planned Feb. 2 nonbinding referendum.
One potential sticking point in the electoral solution being negotiated is the fate of striking employees of the state oil giant PDVSA, more than 5,000 of whom have been fired.
Opposition leaders are demanding they be reinstated as part of any deal, but Chavez, who has replaced them with troops and loyal personnel, has refused an amnesty.