MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez poll petition rejected.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council on Friday deemed invalid the more than 3 million signatures collected by the opposition in an effort to hold a referendum on whether President Hugo Chavez should remain in office.

Rejection of the signatures, which the council said had been collected too early, had been expected. Opposition leaders said they would collect them again in their drive to force the leftist- populist president from office.

Electoral Council chairman Francisco Carrasquero told reporters that the signatures were rejected because they were collected prematurely.

The opposition Democratic Coordinator coalition gathered signatures in February, six months before Chavez was half-way through his six-year term, which is the legal time frame established to begin proceedings to cut short the mandate of an elected official. Carrasquero added that many mistakes had been found in the Coordinator's petition to hold the referendum.

A group of government supporters began gathering early Friday at the gates of the Electoral Council to await the panel's decision. Police were deployed in force around the Electoral Council building.

The president's partisans shouted slogans hailing the "Comandante," as fervent backers of the Bolivarian Revolution call Chavez, a retired lieutenant colonel who led a foiled military coup in 1992.

Hundreds more of Chavez's supporters marched peacefully through the working-class Catia neighborhood of western Caracas.

Earlier in the day, pro-government and opposition spokesmen addressed the media on the more than 3.2 million signatures submitted on Aug. 20 to press for the recall referendum.

The rejection of the signatures by the Electoral Council had been expected and reported in recent days by the media as a fait accompli.

Even before the announcement, Coordinator spokesman Asdrubal Aguiar announced that the opposition would be ready with a second batch of signatures by Sept. 28.

Government supporters insist that the signatures submitted by the opposition are false. For Chavez to be forced out of office by referendum, more than 25 percent of the registered voters must cast ballots and the total number of votes for removing the president must exceed the 3,757,773 million he obtained in July 2000.

If Chavez's mandate is revoked before Aug. 19, 2004, general elections will be held within 30 days, but if he is ousted after that date, the vice president will serve the balance of his six-year mandate