Venezuelan opposition calls for protests on Feb. 12

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Sunday called protests on Feb. 12 to demand free and fair elections in the country.

"If the dictatorship intended to leave us locked up in our homes, pretending that they were going to eliminate the possibility of that plebiscitary event, then let them find us in the streets demanding, organizing ourselves in a peaceful manner to exercise the united majority," reads the statement shared by Guaidó's National Communication Center.

Guaidó said that Venezuelans must create an alliance because being united and mobilized is the "clear prelude to democracy."

"We have to prepare for the central objective: a free and fair presidential election that they owe us since 2018; but they also owe us the parliamentary one," Guaidó said.

Guaido talked about the protests on Sunday during an event that commemorated the 64th anniversary of the overthrow of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who ruled the country between 1952 and 1958.

According to Guaido, 2022 began with a substantial "maturity and recognition." This could be seen in the governmental elections of Jan. 9 in the state of Barinas, the birthplace of the late Hugo Chávez.

"Today, the dictatorship has an expiration date, and Venezuela has a rebirth date. Our agenda is the recovery of democracy. The route to 2022 is presidential elections with conditions as soon as possible," added Guaidó.

The opposition criticized the rules of the National Electoral Council (CNE) to activate the Recall Referendum against Nicolás Maduro, describing them as "savage" for allowing only one day to collect signatures.

As established by the CNE, each collection center will have to process five signatures per minute without any margin of error. The electoral registry of the elections of governors and mayors of last Nov. 21 will be used for the recall, which includes 20.9 million registered voters.

The group of opposition organizations will need to collect signatures that equal to 20% of the registry in Caracas and each of the 23 states. If one region does not reach 20%, even if the rest reaches the goal, the procedure will be annulled.