Venezuela ruling party may seek to dissolve congress

Venezuela’s coalition government is reportedly seeking to dissolve the congress, as rifts keep widening between President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition, which controls the chamber.

Ruling coalition spokesman Didalco Bolivar said Tuesday that Maduro's side “has started discussions to request a consultation with the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court” with the aim of “the abolition of this National Assembly.”

The move came after controversy emerged out of a move by some members of the congress who had collected signatures for a recall vote to cut the term in office of Maduro. Sources in Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) claimed there were irregularities during the gathering of signatures and said the government may submit a request to the high court to dissolve the parliament over the fraud.

Jorge Rodríguez, a senior member of the PSUV and a former vice president, said Monday that the opposition disregarded Venezuela’s constitution when collecting signatures because, in his words, they could not validate the number of signatures they provided to the National Electoral Council (CNE).

He said the PSUV would report on the irregularities caused by the Unified Democratic Panel (MUD) during the signature gathering.

Venezuelan opposition leaders claimed earlier in the week that they had authenticated enough signatures on a petition to step up the campaign for a recall referendum.

Referendum coordinator Vicente Bello said on June 24 that the number of signatures had “clearly exceeded the minimum needed.”

However, Rodríguez told the state-run news agency AVN that a total of 1,957,779 signatures were delivered to the CNE, of which some 1,352,052 were valid. He said those invalid signatures included signatures of the dead people, non-existent identification numbers, minors, and also politically-disqualified people.

Rodríguez said the opposition failed to validate the number of signatures it previously delivered to the electoral body.

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