CARACAS — The Venezuelan opposition’s campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro has been thrown into disarray with election officials’ decision to suspend a recall drive against the socialist leader a week before it was to start.

In a related move, a court appeared to issue a ruling Friday blocking key opposition leaders from leaving the country.

With the latest actions, the government has effectively halted the effort to stage a recall effort that polls suggest Maduro would have lost by a wide margin. The ruling is particularly dramatic because it comes just days before critics of the socialist administration were to start gathering the one-fifth of voters’ signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot.

‘‘This is a big deal and reveals that the government was fearful of what could happen in the three-day signature collection period. They have effectively postponed the recall referendum indefinitely. This measure makes it difficult to think of Venezuela as a democracy,’’ said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Officials cited alleged fraud in a preliminary effort to get 1 percent of voters’ signatures as justification for blocking the opposition from proceeding to the next stage of the referendum on Maduro’s removal. His critics blame the late president Hugo Chavez’s heir for Venezuela’s economic collapse, bare store shelves, and the jailing of opposition leaders.

The opposition immediately blasted the decision as unconstitutional. ‘‘The government is pushing toward a very dangerous scenario,’’ former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Twitter.

Capriles and opposition spokesman Jesus Torrealba on Friday posted a document online that appeared to be from a local court, and barred eight leaders from leaving the embattled South American country without giving a reason.

The suspension of the recall came as a shock to many Venezuelans.

Associated Press