News Analysis: Venezuela's recall referendum in dire need of legal clarity

The possibility of a presidential recall vote in Venezuela depends on the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the opposition, which are currently at loggerheads, resolving their legal disputes, according to a Venezuelan expert.

Although the CNE is an independent organ of state, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) has repeatedly accused it of seeking to protect President Nicolas Maduro by delaying the referendum process.

Last week, the CNE said the opposition would have to collect the signatures of 20 percent of registered voters in each of the country's 23 states on Oct. 26-28.

This level of support is needed to trigger the recall referendum against Maduro but involves collecting almost 4 million signatures in just three days.

In an interview with Xinhua, constitutional lawyer Hermann Escarra said these stringent conditions have been condemned by the MUD as "violating the Constitution", adding they would seek to collect 20 percent of signatures nationwide, not per state.

Either way, this process happening in late October makes it unlikely that a referendum would take place in 2016. This has outraged the MUD as a referendum deciding to oust Maduro, happening before Jan. 10, 2017, would trigger automatic presidential elections. If happening after this date, the vice president would replace Maduro until January 2019.

On Sept. 21, when announcing the dates for the signature gathering, the CNE ruled out any possibility of holding the referendum this year.

Escarra explained that the country's Constitution does not establish if the 20 percent threshold should be tallied nationally or counted in every region.

He added that the opposition could go to the Supreme Court for a ruling, which would resolve the problem of interpretation.

However, the MUD accuses both the leadership of the CNE and the justices of the Supreme Court of favoring Maduro, which could stop them from making such a move, said the lawyer.

On Tuesday, Henry Ramos Allup, the opposition leader and president of the National Assembly, said that the government might take "new legal actions to prevent the will of the people."

He said these might take the form of canceling the MUD's ability to lead the referendum process, finding a number of signatures in the petition fraudulent, or simply declaring the whole initiative unconstitutional.

For the referendum to be valid, more than 25 percent of registered voters must participate, and the opposition must get more votes against Maduro than he won in his 2013 election victory with 7,505,338 votes.

CNE Director Socorro Hernandez said last week that CNE needs to preserve the rights of the people.

"It is very important to preserve the rights of the people. We are giving the whole country the opportunity for the 20 percent to be gathered. There must be a referendum," she said in an interview with Venezuela's private Globovision TV channel on Sept. 23.

In early August, CNE announced that the MUD fulfilled the first step by collecting about 2 million signatures, more than what the constitution requires, and it will have to gather signatures from 20 percent of registered voters, or nearly 4 million Venezuelans, for the referendum to proceed to the next stage.

CNE said that the recall referendum process is moving forward "with absolute normalcy, contradicting the opposition's claims that the government has stymied the process. Endi