Venezuela's opposition steeled itself today for a new battle in its campaign to remove President Nicolas Maduro in a referendum, vowing nationwide rallies to pressure the crisis-hit government.
Seventeen years after his late mentor Hugo Chavez launched Venezuela on the path of socialist "revolution," Maduro is clinging to the helm of a country in deep crisis.
The once-booming country, home to the world's largest oil reserves, is gripped by severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods that have triggered violence and looting.
The opposition, which blames Maduro for the mounting chaos, wants to get rid of him with a recall referendum.
It won a key battle yesterday when the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced it had collected nearly double the 200,000 signatures required to start the process.
But it appears the war has just begun.
Maturer's camp has vowed to fight tooth and nail. Complicating matters, the opposition says he controls both the electoral council and Supreme Court.
The president's opponents face a long, complicated struggle.
To trigger a recall vote, they must now gather four million signatures in just three days at a time yet to be decided.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles called two days of nationwide rallies for Wednesday and Thursday to start mobilising support.
Other opposition leaders camped out early today at the electoral council's headquarters, awaiting the official certificate declaring they had gathered the necessary signatures to complete the first phase.
After receiving it, they flashed it before television cameras.
They said they would immediately file their formal request for a recall vote. The council has 15 days to respond.
"We're just one step away from the day when our people will exercise their constitutional right and enable us to resolve this crisis," said Juan Carlos Caldera of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), the broad opposition coalition behind the referendum drive.
The opposition is racing to force a referendum by January 10, four years into the president's six-year term.
Any time after that, a successful recall vote would simply transfer power to Maduro's hand-picked vice-president rather than trigger new elections.
