Venezuela Opposition Starts Gathering Signatures to Oust Maduro

The Venezuelan opposition had originally planned protests across Venezuela for Wednesday in order to demand the National Electoral Council hand over the necessary forms to formally begin the process of a recall referendum against President Maduro.

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But on Tuesday Venezuela's electoral authorities handed over the forms, so the locations where protests were planned have now been turned into points to gather signatures.

The opposition have 30 days to collect the 195,721 signatures required to initiate the referendum from 1 percent of the electorate in each of Venezuela's 24 states. But one opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, of the Primero Justicia party, has said they expect to get enough people to sign “within hours."

WATCH:  teleSUR correspondent Iain Bruce's report

Once the process is completed, the signatures need to be verified and the process moves to a second stage, where they have to gather signatures from 20 percent of registered voters, which amounts to just under 4 million people. Only after this final stage can the referendum be properly initiated.

Opposition leaders have repeatedly accused the CNE of putting obstacles in their way. But the CNE insists that as long as the opposition follows the correct procedures, it will too.