Caracas, Venezuela ? President Hugo Chavez declared victory Sunday after his opponents agreed to ease a two-month national strike, but thousands of Venezuelans still lined up for a petition drive seeking his ouster.

Strike organizers, who began the protest Dec. 2 to pressure Chavez into accepting a referendum on his rule, said Friday they would ease the work stoppage, already waning, this week to protect businesses from bankruptcy.

However, the strike will continue in the vital oil industry, where production was cut from 3 million barrels a day to 150,000 at the height of the strike. Chavez said Sunday the government boosted production to 1.8 million barrels a day, but striking workers put the number at 1 million.

“Today is a victorious day,” the president said in his weekly television and radio program. “We have beaten once and for all a new destabilizing attempt, a new malevolent and criminal attempt to sink Venezuela.”

Opposition leaders — who accuse Chavez of ruining the economy with leftist policies and trying to accumulate too much power — were far from conceding defeat.

Thousands of Venezuelans waited hours in the tropical sun Sunday to sign petitions at tables nationwide in support of various measures renouncing Chavez’s government and seeking his ouster.

Under the constitution, a new general election could be underway this year if organizers collect signatures from 15 percent, or about 1.8 million, of the country’s 12 million registered voters — a number they expect to surpass easily.

“We’re looking for the fastest way to get out of this crisis,” said Freddy Hurtado, 56. “Given that the president is the cause of the crisis, we’re going to get rid of him with our signatures.”