Opponents of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez are starting a four-day signature drive seeking a referendum to vote the leftist leader out of office.
An alliance of opposition parties and groups hopes to gather 2.4 million signatures needed to trigger a vote against the former army officer who they claim is steadily turning the world's Number 5 oil exporter into a communist tyranny.
After two years of conflict, opposition leaders believe their referendum campaign will succeed in ousting Mr Chavez at the ballot box. A short-lived coup last year and a recent crippling two-month oil strike failed to topple him.
The opposition says it will collect signatures at more than 2,700 centres across the country and expects dozens of international observers to guarantee a fair process. But they fear Mr Chavez may use violence to scuttle their campaign.
The National Electoral Council will have to verify the signatures before deciding whether to allow the presidential referendum in April next year.
A creeping economic recovery and increased state spending on social programs such as education and health have helped shore up Mr Chavez's support.
He says he will defeat any attempt to unseat him through a poll and claims his support is as strong as ever in the poverty-stricken countryside and the sprawling shanty towns that ring Caracas.
Six years after leading a botched coup as a young army paratrooper, Mr Chavez was elected promising to improve the lives of Venezuela's impoverished majority who see little of the country's huge oil wealth.
But his foes say his revolutionary reforms, such as cheap credits and land redistribution, are ruining the economy. Mr Chavez dismisses his opponents as rich elites desperate to protect their privileges.
A failed coup against Hugo Chavez was the subject of Chavez: Inside the Coup- an award-winning Irish-made documentary which documented the events of April 2002, when dissident army coup plotters and privately owned TV stations urged citizens to march on the presidential palace and "restore freedom" to the country.
Mr Chavez was briefly removed from power before soldiers loyal to the president intervened and reinstated him.