Oust Chavez, petitions urge

www.globeandmail.com POSTED AT 11:57 PM EST    Sunday, February 2 By PAUL KNOX From Monday's Globe and Mail

Caracas — Hundreds of thousands of President Hugo Chavez's foes turned out across Venezuela Sunday to sign recall petitions aimed at kicking him out of office and annulling laws passed during his four years in power.

But their leaders drastically scaled back a two-month-old strike in the world's No.5 oil-exporting country, and the flamboyant President said the campaign against him had failed.

Mr. Chavez threatened legal action against oil-refinery workers and others guilty of what he called "sabotage" during the strike, which has sharpened a serious economic downturn in this country of 24 million.

"They've been defeated," he said on his weekly television program, referring to opposition leaders. "They have F for failure stamped on their foreheads."

But supporters of the petition said they still hope to force an early electoral test of the President's rule, which opponents say has brought Venezuela to the brink of economic ruin.

"The only way out of this is to have elections as soon as possible," said accountant Luis Benavides, 55, as he waited to sign the petitions in the middle-class Chacaito district.

Mr. Benavides said he voted for Mr. Chavez in 1998, but he feels betrayed. "This is an autocratic, authoritarian government with communist tendencies."

Long lines formed in middle-class and affluent sections of Caracas, as residents, many wearing clothes depicting the yellow, blue and red Venezuelan flag, waited to sign the petitions.

Turnout was scant in the working-class Petare district.

"The rich don't like this government. The poor do," said Pedro Rojas, 29, an autobody painter who said he would not sign.

Mr. Chavez, a former paratrooper who led an abortive military coup d'état in 1992, but later won election as a civilian, said he has boosted school enrolment by more than a million and lowered infant mortality since taking office.

Banks, shopping centres and supermarkets are set to reopen this week in what opposition leaders bravely described as "giving flexibility" to the strike, which began on Dec. 2.

Workers at the state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela remain on strike. But more than 5,000 of them, including 700 senior executives, have been fired for walking out.

The work stoppage was aimed at forcing Mr. Chavez to agree to a non-binding referendum on whether he should continue in office. He refused but has agreed to discuss the country's political future in talks involving foreign facilitators.

Under discussion are proposals for a binding recall referendum in August and a constitutional amendment to cut his term to four years from six. Either measure would lead to elections this year.

Petitions calling for such measures were among those being signed Sunday. Another aimed to revoke 47 emergency decrees passed by Mr. Chavez.

Opposition leaders said they were confident of obtaining the 2.4 million signatures needed to force a presidential recall vote.

Four people were injured when pro-Chavez protesters threw stones, fireworks and tear-gas canisters near two petition tables in downtown Caracas, police told The Associated Press. A car belonging to a private, local television station was set alight.