By Jon Jeter
Washington Post Foreign Service

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 5 -- President Hugo Chavez told foreign ambassadors Friday that the majority of the people who supposedly signed a recall petition do not exist, and that the opposition was "a terrorist and coup-mongering movement dressed in democratic clothes which is trying to unseat the government."

The stalled effort to recall Chavez will reach a pivotal stage this weekend, with protesters planning a massive nationwide demonstration and supporters of a referendum negotiating with election officials for more time and resources to confirm nearly 876,000 disputed signatures.

Chavez, summoning the diplomats to the presidential palace in a meeting broadcast on national television, accused the United States of supporting the opposition. "In the name of the truth, I have to ask the Washington government to get its hands off Venezuela," Chavez told the ambassadors. "Mr. Bush's government is financing this mad opposition. I have quite a lot of evidence."

Responding to a question, he also said that while the opposition might succeed, "I don't think it will happen because the majority of those people don't even exist."

Venezuela's constitution requires the opposition to collect 2.4 million signatures to force a recall vote, but elections officials last week rejected nearly 1.1 million of the more than 3 million signatures submitted. That includes 876,000 signatures that the National Electoral Council concluded contained discrepancies but will be allowed to be validated over two days later this month.

However, Maria Corina Machado, a spokeswoman for Sumate, the organization responsible for the petition drive, said that the task would be "physically impossible. Especially if we have to defend each and every one of these signatures. The way the government has it now, none of the challenged signatures are valid unless a person shows up and says, 'Yes, that's my signature.' "

Following a week of violent protests in which at least seven demonstrators were killed, organizers of the petition drive to oust Chavez say that they hope to pressure elections officials with a protest Saturday that they expect to be the largest to date.

But diplomatic officials say the recall campaign will likely survive only if the opposition can persuade the Chavez-controlled electoral council to lengthen from two to five days the period in which citizens can confirm their disqualified signatures.

"This is critical," said Fernando Jaramillo, head of the Organization of American States' mission to Venezuela. "If this process is to continue, it is up to the opposition in the next few days."

Monitors with both the OAS and the Atlanta-based Carter Center said they saw no significant problems with the collection of signatures, and both organizations said they disagreed with electoral officials' decision to disallow the votes.

Government negotiators agreed to increase the number of polling stations made available for the repair process from 600 to 2,700 and to allow the use of government computers.

But by Friday afternoon, negotiators had not agreed on key points. Election officials insist that all signatories must confirm their signatures, while the opposition has lobbied for a system in which anyone who disputed his or her signature on the recall petition could remove it.

Organizers also say that it is all but physically impossible for them to validate so many signatures -- including as many as 250,000 collected in door-to-door solicitations from the elderly, sick and handicapped, who cannot easily leave their homes -- in such a short time.

© 2004