After a holiday break lasting until January 5, the CEN will have a month to check the signatures and determine whether enough are valid or not to meet the minimum 2.4 million required to trigger a recall referendum.

Washington and other imperialist governments have backed the effort by the Coordinadora Democrática opposition coalition, which is spearheaded by Venezuelan big business. The Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center had observers during the four-day signature gathering between November 28 and December 1. These observers claimed there were no flaws in the petition drive.

The Chávez government, on the other hand, charged the opposition with major fraud. Caracas has backed up its claim with testimony by workers who said their employers coerced them into signing the opposition petitions on the threat of losing their jobs. It has also presented evidence of forged signatures of people who have died; thug attacks on pro-government observers at polling stations; and Venezuelans not listed on voter rolls crossing into the country from Colombia to back the anti-Chávez ballot drive. Government officials said the opposition got fewer than 2 million signatures, below the margin required for a referendum.

The looming showdown between the big majority of working people, on one hand, and the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and its backers in Washington, on the other, is shaping up to be the third major confrontation in the country in the last three years over who holds governmental power. Previous attempts to oust Chávez—an April 2002 military coup and a two-month employers’ lockout a year ago—failed because of mass mobilizations by working people that caused deep rifts in the military.

The Chávez government has won widespread popular support among workers, peasants, fishermen, and other exploited producers with measures that are in the interest of the toilers. These include an agrarian reform law that grants titles and credits to peasants who have taken over land from big landlords and are tilling it; a bill that substantially expands the rights of small fishermen to the detriment of capitalist fishing firms; and legislation that strengthens state control of oil and other natural resources that are part of the country’s national patrimony.

Attempts by working people to implement these measures have been at the heart of why the capitalist class, with Washington’s backing, has not let up in its drive to topple the government. Chávez has also drawn the wrath of U.S. imperialism and its supporters in Venezuela for developing close ties to revolutionary Cuba. These have included close working relations in the country’s nationwide literacy program launched in June 2003 and a program that has brought to the country thousands of Cuban doctors operating free neighborhood clinics in areas where working people have had little or no access to medical care.  
 
 
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