Anti-Chávez drive hits big obstacle

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Feb. 26, 2004

Anti-Chávez drive hits big obstacle

A national elections board finds problems with signatures on thousands of petition forms in the campaign to remove Venezuela's president from office.

BY FRANCES ROBLES

[e-mail]


CARACAS - Dealing a serious blow to an opposition drive to oust President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's elections board ruled that more than one million people who signed petitions demanding a recall referendum will have to confirm their signatures.

The country's umbrella opposition organization, Democratic Coordinator, denounced the decision as unconstitutional and said it would no longer recognize the authority of the National Electoral Council, known as CNE.
(snip)

The action by the CNE was the latest -- and some say worst -- obstacle so far in the quest to drive out Chávez through a recall referendum.
(snip)

''The OAS and The Carter Center consider the concern legitimate in that it is necessary to determine whether one person signed for another, clearly violating the rules,'' the organizations wrote in a statement.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/8043766.htm

[bemildred]

1. Silly me.

I think verifying a statistically valid sample in such
situations would always be a good idea, the first thing to
be done, before doing anything based on the petitions.

I do have to wonder, also, what "not recognizing" the CNE means.
Are they going to pout and go home, or start another coup?

[Bozola]

2. It's amazing how many people in Venezuela...

write exactly like Otto Reich!


Pure coincidence. Nothing to see here.

[denverbill]

3. Amazing isn't it.

I heard stories about the petitition signings too. One story said that employees of anti-Chavez employers were ordered to go sign, and that in order to prove they had signed, the petition gatherers handed out little buttons or stickers or something, so that the employer would know if his workers had signed or not.