VENEZUELA: REACTIONS TO UPCOMING PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE ONE DAY AFTER ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES SAID INITIAL FIGURES SHOWED THE OPPOSITION HAD COLLECTED ENOUGH VALID SIGNATURES TO TRIGGER A REFERENDUM

Record ID: 328689

  • Title: VENEZUELA: REACTIONS TO UPCOMING PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE ONE DAY AFTER ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES SAID INITIAL FIGURES SHOWED THE OPPOSITION HAD COLLECTED ENOUGH VALID SIGNATURES TO TRIGGER A REFERENDUM
  • Date: 4th June 2004
  • Summary: (W5) CARACAS, VENEZUELA (JUNE 4, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC ON THE STREETS/ NEWSPAPER VENDORS BETWEEN CARS (3 SHOTS) 0.18 2. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE READING NEWSPAPERS / NEWSPAPER VENDORS (4 SHOTS) 0.41 3. VARIOUS PEOPLE WAITING TO GET ON THE BUS 0.48 4. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ARQUIMEDES RIVERO, RESIDENT, SAYING "All Venezuelans have the great fortune to not to have had to fight too long against this regime and now starting August 8th we will have the opportunity to participate in this referendum and to do it for the good of Venezuela." 0.58 5. VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC/PEOPLE READING PAPERS (2 SHOTS) 1.10 6. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LEOPOLDO GASTON, RESIDENT, SAYING "Well, this is the people's will but it doesn't mean that Chavez is going to go. It means that will we have to chance to decide is he stays, if the people want, he will go. The opposition is really confident that this referendum means that Chavez will go, and it's not like that, its just one more vote." 1.36 7. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE ON THE STREETS , READING THE NEWSPAPER, TRAFFIC (4 SHOTS) 1.58 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CARACAS, VENEZUELA
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Reuters ID: LVAA3999NFLE8QI102FYVXRAG9WO
  • Story Text: Venezuelans react to the upcoming presidential
    recall vote the day after electoral authorities said
    initial figures showed the opposition had collected enough
    valid signatures to trigger the referendum.



    Opposition leaders called the referendum result a
    major victory in their campaign to try to vote Chavez out
    of the presidency, after more than two years of often
    violent political feuding.

    Jubilant opposition supporters took to the streets,
    honking car horns and waving national flags.

    "All Venezuelans have the great fortune to not to have
    had to fight too long against this regime" said Arquimedes
    Rivero, a member of the opposition. "Now starting August
    8th we will have the opportunity to participate in this
    referendum and to do it for the good of Venezuela."
    But thousands of Chavez supporters do not see the
    referendum as the end of their president.

    "Well, this is the people's will but it doesn't mean
    that Chavez is going to go." said one Caracas resident,
    Leopoldo Gaston. "It means that will we have to chance to
    decide if he stays, if the people want, he will go. The
    opposition is really confident that this referendum means
    that Chavez will go, and it's not like that, its just one
    more vote."
    Chavez said his acceptance of the recall mechanism
    enshrined in Venezuela's 1999 constitution, which he helped
    to draft, showed he was not the dictator his critics made
    him out to be.

    The president, a firebrand nationalist elected in 1998
    and re-elected in 2000 for a second six-year term,
    addressed his defiance to U.S. President George W. Bush,
    whom he said was backing opposition efforts to oust him.

    The United States, Venezuela's biggest oil client, has
    criticized Chavez for allying himself with Cuba's Communist
    President Fidel Castro, but it denies trying to topple him.

    Washington welcomed the referendum announcement.

    Chavez, a former paratrooper who won elections six
    years after failing to seize power in a 1992 coup, has
    repeatedly condemned the referendum petition as riddled
    with fraud.

    His opponents have accused him of manipulating
    electoral officials and judges in a bid to block a
    referendum. Most past opinion polls have shown the president
    losing a referendum, but he dismisses these as biased and has
    stepped up spending on populist social projects.

    Chavez survived a brief coup in 2002. He condemns his
    enemies as wealthy, U.S.-backed elites trying to overthrow
    his self-styled "revolution" he says seeks to help the poor.


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