Venezuela’s Electoral Council Initiates 19 Additional Recall Procedures

[BayCityProgressive]

For All who claim Venezuela is a dictatorship.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2253

Caracas, March 29, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuela’s National Electoral Council approved requests to initiate recall procedures against 19 more elected officials. Also, the Council announced that signatures in support of recall referenda will be collected June 16 to 18.

With the approval of these new requests for recall procedures, the total number of elected officials that could face a recall referendum is now 46. Last week the National Electoral Council (CNE) had already approved recall processes for four governors, 20 mayors, and four state legislators.

Among the new officials that citizen groups would like to recall are Freddy Bernal, the mayor of the largest municipality of Caracas, Libertador, and the governor of Yaracuy state, Carlos Gimenez. Together, the new batch of possible recall candidates includes 11 mayors, one governor, and 7 state legislators.

This means that on June 16, 17, and 18, the CNE will organize a signature collection process, whereby the groups initiating the recall process must collect signatures from at least 20% of registered voters in each of the elected official’s district. The signatures will be collected with the help of fingerprint scanners, so as to accelerate the process of verifying the signatures.

[stillcool]

1. must be nice... n/t

[BayCityProgressive]

2. yeah it would be nice

to recall Lieberbush. Oh and I know someone is sure to say "they are probably recalling all anti-Chavez politicians". Nope..most of them pro-Chavez but charged with being corrupt.

[stillcool]

4. my lottery plans now include..

a visit to Venezuela. Have you noticed that the anti-Chavez folks don't number that many, but just post alot? ..

[Judi Lynn]

3. This is interesting as both liberals and conservatives are involved:

So far, the recall referenda have been initiated by a wide variety of pro- and anti-government citizen groups.

If the 20% of registered voters’ signatures are collected in favor of a referendum, then at least as many voters have to vote in favor of the recall as originally voted for the candidate. In some cases, such as Caracas Mayor Freddy Bernal, the number of votes needed to recall him is extremely high, since he won with 74% of the vote in October 2004. Also, for the vote to be valid, at least 25% of registered voters have to participate in the referendum.
(snip)

Note to self, find out more about current Caracas mayor, Freddie Bernal. Have heard his name a lot, but have only a big question mark about who he is. It would be interesting in finding out what he has done to enrage someone, or if it's only the oligarchy after him, as it was against Hugo Chavez. It doesn't sound all that likely he can be recalled if the same 74% vote for him to remain in office!