OAS seeks emergency meeting on Venezuela

The head of the Organisation of American States (OAS) yesterday called for an urgent meeting to see if crisis-hit Venezuela’s socialist government had breached democratic rules, which could lead to a process of suspension.
Luis Almagro, a former Uruguayan foreign minister, has called Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a “petty dictator,” accusing him of disrupting democracy by blocking the opposition-controlled congress and putting loyalists in the Supreme Court.
Venezuela views the OAS as a pawn of hostile US policy, and Maduro has dismissed Almagro as a turncoat working for its ideological adversaries in Washington.
A two-thirds vote in the 34-nation OAS’ General Assembly would still be needed to suspend Venezuela.
Caracas has lost the support of diplomatic heavyweights Brazil and Argentina following their recent shifts to the right.
But it still enjoys strong support from small Caribbean and Central American nations, including those who benefit from preferential oil and fuel sales, which could ensure it a numerical advantage in any vote.
A statement from the Washington-based OAS said Almagro was invoking the body’s Inter-American Democratic Charter and had requested a meeting of the permanent council between June 10-20 to analyse the situation in Venezuela.
Opposition leaders are seeking to remove Maduro through a recall referendum, and accuse government loyalists in the elections council of stalling the process.
Meanwhile Maduro allies yesterday accused his opponents of fraud in their petition for a vote on removing him from office, saying 10,000 people who supposedly signed it are dead.
With Venezuela mired in a punishing economic crisis, Maduro’s opponents are racing to fulfil the requirements to call a recall referendum against him.
They are hoping to clear a first hurdle tomorrow, when electoral authorities are due to finish reviewing an initial batch of 1.8mn signatures backing a recall vote.
But the leftist leader’s allies alleged the petition - the first of two required - was riddled with fraud.
“I state with full responsibility that at this time we have detected 10,000 deceased people signing,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the head of a commission appointed by Maduro to oversee the process.
He alleged more than 40% of the signatures were fraudulent in separate comments on Sunday.
If the electoral board accepts the preliminary petition, signatories will then be asked to confirm their decision in person and prove their identity via fingerprint scans.