Caracas, Jun 12 (EFE).– Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said Sunday that socialist President Nicolas Maduro would be removed from office this year and insisted that government opponents had gathered the quantity of signatures – 1 percent of the voting population – needed for the first phase of the recall referendum process.

Maduro “will be recalled this year, period,” the two-time presidential candidate said at a political rally in Caracas a day after the president used similar language to say no referendum on his tenure would be held in 2016.

Capriles also slammed the National Electoral Council, or CNE, for declaring more than 600,000 signatures invalid, saying it was clear – based on its big victory in last December’s legislative elections – that the opposition “obviously has the 1 percent of signatures,” roughly 200,000, needed at this stage of the process.

The MUD opposition coalition presented more than 1.9 million signatures, or far more than the required amount, on May 2.

The CNE struck 605,727 of them off the list for not complying with the “required criteria,” while the remaining 1,352,052 signatories must go to an electoral office to prove their identity via fingerprinting over a five-day period starting June 20.

If the required number of signatures are validated, then the process will move to a second stage in which the opposition must collect – over a period of three days – the signatures of at least 20 percent of the electorate.

“These are procedures … to demoralize, to put up obstacles. A person who was strong in power would subject himself to a popular vote,” Capriles said, adding that the ruling out of large numbers of signatures, including those of opposition leaders, “shows how afraid Maduro and his government are of the people’s voice.”

Maduro’s opponents are seeking to force a recall referendum before Jan. 10, 2017, because in that case, if the president were to be voted out, a snap election would be held that could bring the opposition to power shortly afterward.

But if the referendum is held after that date, then even if Maduro loses he would be replaced by his vice president, Aristobulo Isturiz, who would serve out the remaining two years of his term.

The drive to recall Maduro comes amid escalating tensions in the South American nation, which is in a severe economic crisis and facing sky-high inflation and food, medicine and electricity shortages. EFE

 

Venezuela Goverment Blames Private Sector for Shortages

 

Madrid, Jun 13 (EFE).– Officials of the Venezuelan government and heads of the affiliated union on Monday in Madrid blamed some business owners and executives for spreading an image of food and medicine shortages in order to malign the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.

Deputy Labor Minister Jose Ramon Rivero and leaders of the CBST union, Orlando Perez and Carlos Lopez, held a press conference Monday in the Spanish capital after previously attending a conference of the International Labor Organization, or ILO, in Switzerland.

News about the scarcity of basic foods and medicines in Venezuela has been spread, according to those authorities, by owners and executives of private businesses who are waging an “economic war” against the Maduro government.

This is nothing less than an attempt to “sabotage the Bolivarian revolution” by slashing food production and hiding pharmaceuticals to keep them from reaching stores, and in that way contribute to the image of shortages they can blame on the government.

“The pharmaceutical industry is a platform of capitalism. Medicines in Venezuela are purchased abroad, with dollars, but we are suffering an embargo by the United States, which says we represent a danger to its national security,” Orlando Perez said. EFE