CARACAS: Venezuelan riot police blocked the opposition from marching on the electoral authority's headquarters Tuesday, using pepper spray to break up a march demanding President Nicolas Maduro face a recall referendum.
It is the third time in recent days police have forcefully broken up attempts to march on the National Electoral Board (CNE), which the opposition says is stalling the recall process to protect a president they accuse of driving the country to the brink of collapse.
Maduro's opponents warn the once-booming oil giant risks exploding into unrest if authorities do not allow a referendum on the leftist leader's rule, which has seen an economic implosion marked by severe shortages of food, electricity, medicine and other basic goods.
Protesters had angry words for the heavily armored riot police, shouting "Traitors!" and "You're hungry too!"
About 1,000 demonstrators took part in the march, lining up behind a giant Venezuelan flag and chanting "This government will fall!" before police broke them up.
The opposition is racing to call a referendum before January 10 -- four years into Maduro's six-year term -- when a successful recall vote would trigger new elections rather than transfer power to the vice president.
"We're here in the street to get Maduro out. We want change in this country. We're hungry," said protester Richard Salas, administrative worker who carried a sign with a long list of products that have disappeared from supermarket shelves.
Leaders of the opposition coalition, the center-right Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), were due to hold a key meeting later with electoral officials.
At the meeting -- which was postponed from last Thursday, infuriating the opposition -- the CNE is due to accept or reject an initial petition for a recall vote signed by 1.8 million people and submitted on May 2.
Opposition representative Vicente Bello said electoral authorities had told him unofficially that they would move on to the next stage of the process -- validating the identity of 200,000 signatories with fingerprint scans -- from June 16 to 20.
"According to our calculations, the recall referendum could then be held in late September or early October of this year," he said.
But there are still many hurdles along the way.
The opposition must first obtain the paperwork for a second petition and get it signed by four million people, then validated by the CNE.
- 'No referendum this year' -
Maduro's camp accuses the opposition of rampant fraud in its signature drive.
"There won't be a referendum this year," Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz said bluntly on Monday.
The opposition, which Maduro brands elitist, has struggled to apply pressure by convening mass protests.
But spontaneous protests, riots and looting have broken out in neighborhoods once considered bastions for Maduro and late president Hugo Chavez, who launched Venezuela on the path of socialist "revolution" in 1999.
A woman died Monday after being hit by a stray bullet when police opened fire on looters trying to ransack a warehouse in the western city of San Cristobal, her family said.
Maduro accuses the business elite of creating shortages artificially to destabilize his government.
International mediators led by Spain's former prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are trying to bring the government and opposition together for talks, but both sides have shown reluctance.
"We're not going to sign up for hypocritical negotiations. If people don't believe in Maduro, they're not going to believe in talks," said protest leader Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost the 2013 presidential race to Maduro.
He said the opposition would not meet with mediators until electoral authorities set a date to validate the initial referendum petition.
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