MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan referendum heats up.

The possibility that more polling stations will be set up in Venezuela because of large numbers of new voters became a new source of dispute between President Hugo Chavez's supporters and the opposition, a month before the August 15 recall referendum.

Felipe Mujica, leader of the opposition alliance known as Democratic Coordinator warned that government's plans to install new polling stations were an attempt to scare off voters opposed to President Chavez and would only serve to "create confusion, and jeopardize the whole electoral process".

Jorge Rodriguez, one of the five members of the National Electoral Council, CNE last July 12 ruled out the need to set up more polling stations.

However the issue became a campaign topic when President Chavez said that 4.6 million people had obtained their identity cards and registered to vote in the past three months. A year ago the number of registered voters was 12 million.

President Chavez predicted that the majority of new voters would cast a "no" vote in the recall referendum and urged his supporters to begin preparing for the event of a massive voters transportation effort thus avoiding a low turnout of "no" votes to the recall referendum.

Following the deadline for registering to vote August 15, the CNE said it expects the final number of voters to level off at just over 14 million.

A prominent figure from the Democratic Coordinator, Henry Ramos forecasted that the opposition will win the recall referendum against Chavez by a 10% margin, "outnumbering pro Chavez voters by 800,000 to one million".

Meanwhile United States urged Venezuela that the recall referendum be performed in an "open, free, fair and transparent" manner.

US Secretary of State Spokesperson Richard Boucher said the issue "was not United States or the Free Trade Association of the Americas, but Venezuelan politics, the Venezuelan system, if the people can express freely or if democracy will be stained and threatened by people who preach violence, want to shut down the media or impede citizens from active politics".

President Chavez is campaigning urging voters to say No to those who want "to hand Venezuela to imperialism". "A thousand times NO, to those who want to frustrate our country".

If the opposition finally votes the president out of office, presidential elections are to be held within 30 days to decide who will finish Mr. Chavez's term in office - which officially ends in January 2007.

President Chavez has already announced that, in the event of a defeat, he will compete in the elections to follow. The Venezuelan Supreme Court meanwhile has yet to rule on the legality of such a bid.

Most opinion polls considered reliable show the pro- and anti-recall forces in a virtual tie.