Electoral Council Delays Referendum Rules

Both the opposition and government supporters have been anxiously awaiting the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) announcement of the rules for recall referenda, which will determine how the recall referendum against President Chavez would proceed. However, the CNE President, Francisco Carrasquero, merely announced that the rules would be delayed for a few more days. Part of the reason for the delay is that the CNE would like to approve of the rules by consensus.

Already over 24 articles have the unanimity of all CNE members, which represents over half of all articles of the recall referendum rules.

Among the issues that the CNE has until now agreed upon are the time frames between submission of a recall petition and the referendum and the locations for collecting petition signatures. The more controversial issues, which have not yet reached consensus include how many petition signatures need to be verified and how much time petitions should have to collect the signatures.