MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

OAS report says Venezuela's elections results untrustworthy given CNE bias

The OAS Permanent Council is to address the matter of the electoral process in Venezuela on Wednesday

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's reelection is not to be taken at face value, according to the Organization of American States (OAS). The continental entity's election observation department found on Tuesday that the National Electoral Council (CNE) in Caracas is known to be pro-government biased.

“The events of election night confirm a coordinated strategy, unfolding over recent months, to undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” the OAS body's report said. “The evidence shows an effort by the regime to ignore the will of the majority expressed in the polls by millions of Venezuelan men and women,” it went on. “What happened shows, once again, that the CNE, its authorities, and the Venezuelan electoral system are at the service of the executive power, not citizens.” The OAS report thus concluded that as long as the minutes of each polling table were not released the results could not be trusted and should not be recognized.

The CNE announced Sunday that Maduro had won with 51.2% of the vote, but the opposition Unitarian Democratic Platform (PUD) of former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia and disenfranchised activist María Corina Machado said the 73% of vote tallies in its possession showed an unsurmountable advantage in their favor which Maduro could not reverse even if he got 100% of the vote elsewhere, Machado stressed. Hence, protests have erupted nationwide.

Maduro insisted Venezuela had the best and most transparent vote system in the world and claimed that those denying his triumph were seeking to stage a coup d'état with foreign support.

The OAS Permanent Council is to address the matter of the electoral process in Venezuela on Wednesday, July 31, at 15:00 EDT (19:00 GMT) in the Simon Bolívar room at its Washington, DC headquarters.