Venezuelan opposition predicts massive turnout in effort to recall President Maduro

Members of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), Venezuela's opposition coalition, predicted on Thursday a massive turnout for the collection of signatures needed to hold a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro.

Carlos Ocariz, mayor of the city of Sucre and MUD's representative for the referendum, said that he hoped "thousands of people" would sign in during the petition drive, scheduled for Oct. 26-28.

"We are prepared to see thousands and thousands of people queuing up at polling stations. Those people will go there to exert their rights," Ocariz told a press conference in Caracas.

The spokesperson said that the collection of signatures of 20 percent of the electorate, or 3,893,127 people, would be a "simple and efficient process."

However, he criticized the Electoral National Council (CNE) for only organizing 1,356 signature reception centers across the country, which he said would slow down the process.

"The waiting time of the queues is not the responsibility of the MUD, if we had had all the centers we demanded, it would be another story," added Ocariz.

Beyond coordinators appointed by the CNE to oversee each reception center, the MUD has appointed its own envoys for each center to guarantee the "transparency" of the process.

After the signatures have been collected in all the country's 23 states and the Capital District, the CNE will verify and validate the signatures before announcing whether the 20 percent participation threshold was met to trigger the referendum. Enditem