Negotiators try to save Venezuelan election deal

Reuters-Alertnet 22 Apr 2003 16:57:33 GMT By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 22 (Reuters) - International negotiators on Tuesday scrambled to salvage an accord for a referendum on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's rule after his government appeared to shy away from signing the initiative.

Officials from the Organization of American States and the Carter Center, which brokered the agreement between the government and opposition, furiously worked the phones after Chavez's ruling party demanded revisions to the accord hours before a signing expected on Tuesday.

"This has really set things back. We are going to need more negotiations and more sitting down around tables now," said one source close to the talks.

The OAS announced the deal April 11, exactly a year after Chavez survived a brief military coup that triggered months of political turmoil and street protests by opposition groups demanding early elections.

The accord was the first concrete result of talks between Chavez, a populist first elected in 1998, and his opponents, who accuse him of ruling the world's No. 5 oil exporter like a corrupt dictator.

The initiative would pave the way for a referendum later this year on whether Chavez should complete his current term of office, scheduled to end in early 2007.

Under Venezuela's constitution, such a poll can be held after Aug. 19, half way through the president's mandate. The opposition must collect signatures from 20 percent of the electorate to trigger such a recall vote. No date had been set for the referendum.

Opposition leaders, who accuse Chavez of deliberately stalling over elections, said they were waiting for the government to clarify their position on the accord.

"The deal is not going to be signed today. They have to tell us now what the government's position is in these negotiations," said Manuel Cova, a union leader and member of the opposition negotiating team.

MORE TIME NEEDED

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel indicated clearly that the government was in no rush to immediately sign the election agreement. He said the government would need more time to study the initiative and consult its supporters.

"We respect the impatience of the opposition, but obviously we don't share it," Rangel said in a statement Tuesday. "In times of negotiations, pressure must be excluded."

National Assembly deputies from Chavez's governing Fifth Republic Movement on Monday stoked confusion by demanding revisions to the agreement.

Chavez, who survived both last year's coup and a grueling opposition strike in December and January, has said the National Assembly must appoint a new National Electoral Council to set a date for the referendum, oversee the vote and reorganize the electoral register.

The Venezuelan leader appears determined to press on with his self-styled revolution as his opponents, a loose alliance of business leaders, unions and political parties, struggle to present a united front.

Six nations, including the United States and Brazil, backed months of tortuous OAS efforts to secure an electoral deal between the government and the opposition.

Mediators are still searching for an acceptable site for renewed negotiations after a bomb blasted the Caracas building where the talks were last held. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, one of several to hit the capital in the last three months.

(Additional reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez)