MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan recall referendum closer to a solution.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's administration reluctantly agreed Thursday a process of validating “dubious” signatures in support of a referendum on the leftist-populist leader's rule.

The recall referendum will be held Aug. 8 provided authorities determine the opposition submitted 2,43 million valid pro-referendum signatures, or 20% of the registered electoral roll, as required by the National Electoral Council, or CNE.

The CNE said Wednesday that the verification process would take place from May 27-31 and that the results would be released on June 4. This Friday, the council plans to release the list of "dubious" signatures that require validation, as well as the rules governing the process.

The divided opposition still has to decide whether it accepts or rejects the signature validation process.

The CNE previously confirmed 1,91 million referendum petitions meaning the opposition still needs 525,000 signature to be validated, that is an equal number of signers must come forward and confirm them. Electoral authorities are contesting a total of 1,19 million of the petitions submitted.

Lawmaker William Lara, spokesman for the Ayacucho Command, an umbrella group of pro-Chavez forces, told reporters that his organization accepts the process "under protest, (because) the heads of the CNE were lavish in their concessions to the opposition".

Some leaders of the opposition alliance Democratic Coordinator are satisfied with the CNE's rulings and say the draft regulations for the process are "very acceptable." But others insist that a previous court ruling establishing that there was a sufficient number of valid signed petitions should be upheld.

That ruling by the Supreme Court's Electoral Chamber was overturned by the high court's Constitutional Chamber, and the legal impasse has yet to be resolved.

According to opposition leader Henrique Salas Romer, "to accept the verification process and force a large group of Venezuelans to sign twice is a violation of the rule of law."

Meanwhile, the Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Centre, observers of the process, issued a joint statement welcoming "the efforts put forth by the authorities of the CNE, as well as the representatives of the Democratic Coordinator and the Ayacucho Command, to achieve a transparent, simple, secure and agile mechanism to conclude the recall referendum petition process.