California recall tame compared with Venezuela's

[jamesinca]

California recall tame compared with Venezuela's
Many say they've lost jobs, grants after signing petition

Phil Gunson, Chronicle Foreign Service Tuesday, October 7, 2003

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Caracas, Venezuela -- The political struggle to remove Venezuela's flamboyant leftist President Hugo Chavez makes California's recall election look like a simple civics lesson.

Unlike Gov. Gray Davis, Chavez, a former army officer who first won the presidency in 1998, has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to stall and even derail the process.

Vanessa Roca, a 31-year-old secretary from the eastern state of Monagas, says she lost her job at a state-owned transport company after signing a petition calling for a recall referendum to remove Chavez from office. She traveled seven hours by bus to ask officials at the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to remove her name from the petition.

"A friend who had the same thing happen to him told me this might help me get my job back," she said. "I understand it happened to a lot of us."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/07/MN83080.DTL