Sergio Calderón, the former secretary general of the COPEI party, has not been heard from since he was abducted July 25 by five gunmen who wore hoods covering their heads but not their faces. The snatching of the popular opposition leader known as ''El Cura'' -- the priest -- has sparked fears that it signals a critical turn in Venezuela's 16-month political crisis.
All the boxes of voter petition signatures were challenged as invalid, and the Chief Executive issued directives to delay their counting. Strings are being pulled to circumvent the rules of law and the state constitution.
And all during the months this has been happening, the Leftist Chief Executive and his apparatchiks have spewed propaganda denouncing the recall effort as illegitimate and politically smearing the reputations of those leading it.
Despite the close resemblance, this state executive is not Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The state is not California, named by Spanish explorers for the land of fabled Queen Califia, ruler of a magical island filled with talking animals.
The state depicted instead was by Spanish explorers named "Little Venice," Venezuela, after the homes its native people had built on stilts above the waters around the oil-rich Lake Maracaibo basin.
The executive depicted is Hugo Chavez, the brutal Marxist thug President who keeps his friend dictator Fidel Castro afloat with Venezuelan oil exchanged for Cuban I.O.U.'s that everybody knows will never be paid.
Polling finds that in a recall election 69 percent of Venezuelans would vote against Chavez, an overwhelming repudiation similar to what polls say California voters would deliver to Gray Davis.
The response of both these Leftist rulers has been an attempt to postpone or prevent any such election, to stifle the democratic voice of the people.
Chavez and his Marxist government allies have prevented the counting of petition signatures, an estimated four million of which remain locked away in 64 boxes in four-foot-high stacks.***