Venezuela's opposition gathered enough signatures to proceed with efforts to call a referendum on removing President Nicolas Maduro, electoral authorities said Monday, without setting a date for the next step.

The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, told a press conference Maduro's opponents had cleared the threshold of 200,000 valid signatures on a petition demanding the leftist leader face a recall referendum.

The council did not set a date for the next stage of the lengthy recall process, in which the opposition must collect four million signatures in just three days. In a boost to the Maduro camp's claims of rampant fraud in the opposition petition drive, Lucena said the authorities had detected more than 1,000 apparently falsified signatures.