Venezuela petition to oust Maduro ‘reaches 37%’ on day one

Capriles insisted that Maduro’s recall should be carried out this year.

Senior U.S. diplomat Tom Shannon is meeting with top Venezuelan officials in Caracas this week as a political and social crisis sweeps the South American country.

The elections council this month rejected more than 600,000 signatures of almost 2 million collected by the opposition, including those of high-profile politicians such as two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.

Opposition leaders have accused the CNE of deliberately stalling the process in order to prevent a referendum from being held this year.

Citizens are suffering shortages of basic foods and goods as well as electricity blackouts.

Crowds of Maduro’s opponents lined up to submit their fingerprints so electoral authorities can authenticate signatures on a petition calling for a referendum on his rule.

President Nicolás Maduro, under tremendous stress to revive the country’s economy, has reportedly expressed delight at the talks.

The opposition needs to validate 200,000 signatures of the 1.8 million collected in May, to begin the referendum process. The CNE alleges that the right-wing opposition had minors, prisoners, even dead people on their signature list.

“This is necessary because the political situation of the country is unsustainable, what we’re living is disgusting”, said Jose Gomez, 45, a merchant, in a line of hundreds at one signature point in Caracas.

Despite years of chilly relations – the two countries have been without ambassadors since 2010 – Venezuela has kept oil flowing north uninterrupted, and is the third biggest U.S. supplier after Saudi Arabia and Canada, according to latest United States data.

“A staggering 87 percent of Venezuelans say they do not have money to buy enough food, the most recent assessment of living standards by Simón Bolívar University found”, The New York Times reported on Monday. If he lost a referendum after January, he would be replaced by his vice president, effectively leaving the Socialist Party in power.

In February, VP National Coordinator Freddy Guevara called for “massive non-violent street pressure” to force Maduro’s resignation in addition to proposing a constitutional amendment to retroactively shorten the presidential term by two years, which was torpedoed by the Supreme Court in April.

The crisis is threatening Maduro and the state-led economic model he inherited from his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

Washington may be hoping a rapprochement undermines Maduro’s constant blaming of his “imperialist” foes for Venezuela’s economic demise and alleged coup plans against him.