MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil trusts the Venezuelan electoral process will be “credible and transparent”

Patriota says South America is one of the most democratic of the world

Brazil said it is confident that the electoral process in Venezuela, where Chavez is bidding for another six years will be “credible and transparent”. Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota made the statement in an interview published on Sunday by O Estado de Sao Paulo.

“Currently South America is one of the most democratic regions of the world where the rule of the law prevails and in which all governments are elected democratically”, said Patriota.

Although admitting that “some societies are more polarized than others” among which he included Venezuela, but he also underlined that “we can’t forget what happened in 2002 when President Hugo Chavez was forcibly removed from office during three days”.

“The Venezuelan opposition showed to be not so democratic when they tried a coup against a democratically elected president”, said Patriota who added that South America nowadays has monitoring and control mechanisms of electoral processes which will help ensure the transparency of the Venezuelan electoral process.

Venezuela is holding presidential elections on 7 October and Chavez is running against Henrique Capriles, a former governor, who according to some public opinion polls is just a couple of percentage points behind.

“Currently we have the Union of South American Nations, Unasur which has an electoral monitoring council and which is naming a group of observers for the coming elections in Venezuela”, said Patriota.