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."
As the Chavez government tries to remain in office, state employees and students who signed the petition, or who are suspected of sympathizing with the political opposition, are being purged from jobs, internships and grants, according to dozens of interviews with trade unionists, students, state workers, lawyers and human rights activists.
And in an effort to discredit the recall movement, state workers whose names appear on the petition are being encouraged by the government to sign legal complaints alleging that their signatures were forged.
Former President Carlos Andres Perez predicts Chavez "will not have a peaceful exit" and will be forced out of office if he refuses to accept the recall vote. "Violence is bad, and we don't promote it," he recently told Colombia's daily newspaper, El Tiempo, "but no other option is possible." ***
The killings, blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, come less than three weeks before Colombians vote on Oct. 26 in local elections that have been dogged by a wave of assassinations, kidnappings and death threats.
Orlando Hoyos, mayor of the southern village of Bolivar, was shot dead on Monday as he left a secret meeting in the mountains with FARC rebels and other officials. Jaime Zambrano, mayor of neighboring Santa Rosa, was killed on Tuesday, police said.
Mayors and councilors in Colombia's lawless countryside are common targets of illegal armed group fighting in a four-decade war. Local war lords, often the real authority in towns with little state presence, frequently summon councilors and mayors to intimidate them and check on their platforms.