Capriles’ Camp Files Recount Demand
HAVANA TIMES — Representatives of the Henrique Capriles campaign presented the National Electoral Council (CNE) today with documentation of alleged irregularities during the presidential elections in Venezuela and formalized its demand for a full audit of last Sunday’s vote.
Carlos Ocariz, coordinator of the opposition campaign, said they presented “evidence” to prove “irregularities” and requested that polling station documentation, fingerprints, voting machines, notebooks and the paper voting receipts be audited, noted dpa news.
He also claimed that “many witnesses” were taken from the polls “at gunpoint” during the elections.
“A political crisis has political solutions. What we are asking is very simple and more than 80 percent of Venezuelans agree: review what took place during the electoral process, vote by vote what happened, so that there is a transparent process,” Ocariz said to the press.
Nicolas Maduro, who on Friday will be sworn-in, was proclaimed president by the CNE on Monday amid opposition protests questioning the results announced. These showed 50.75 percent of the vote (7,563,747) for Maduro compared to 48.97 percent opposition leader Henrique Capriles (7,298,491), who said he would only concede defeat after a “vote by vote” recount since he is “sure” that he won the election.
Ocariz said “irregularities were presented with photos, evidence and allegations” in a “long and cordial” meeting with the president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena.
“Hopefully the CNE will deliver a political solution. That’s what we are hoping for. Our right and duty is to speak clearly to the country. Both candidates said they wanted the votes counted while the international community recommended the same. We don’t understand why they don’t do the recount”. Ocariz insisted that any “doubts” would be cleared with the review: “We will accept the final result after the audit,” he added.
Lucena said the CNE will respond to the opposition request based on the Constitution “as quickly as possible.”
dawn, I agreed with you until the last paragraph when you started to make some pretty wild accusations of your own.
Not sure how many elections you’ve worked. But losing a close election is tough. And I can only imagine losing a close election is even tougher in a highly polarized climate such as Venezuela. Not that this is an excuse for anything other than peaceful protest.
Apart from the count which needs to be above reproach, there are other types of irregularities in all democratic elections. Strikes me as highly implausible that irregularities could over-turn a 265,000 vote margin of victory.
Capriles’ party needs to accept that they fought hard but lost a close election, look at the positives of almost pulling off a stunning upset, and start organizing for future elections.
This language being used by the opposition is not accurate. There is nothing to “recount”. they are playing on that word to garner sympathy, especially from progressives in the US who DID lose an election because of a refusal to recount. But this vote was electronic and automatically counted instantly. There is no “recount” possible without re-voting. What is possible is an audit of the machines against the receipt tickets….which due to the number of votes already audited, no different outcome is statistically possible.
I interviewed the president of SUMATE on Monday, the watchdog organization that organized the recall against Chávez years ago and this time was the opposition’s monitors of the process etc. He, Robert Abdul, said there was no doubt about the quantitative results of the election. He said that an audit would not result in different numbers. The voting and counting were automated and audited WAY beyond a statistical sampling (%54 of all the machines were audited with NO problems found).
What they are saying is there were denouncements of irregularities of behavior during the election process. But if you go to their website… (they had a hotline for denouncements) you will find that most of the 2500 denouncements consisted of the (75) post-vote ink for the finger wasn’t working well, (58) polls stayed open later than 6 pm (they were supposed to if there were people still waiting to vote). And keep in mind these denouncements are simply somebody calling up and making a claim. There is NO WAY to know if they are truthful or made up.
The opposition is playing dirty and grasping at straws and the international press is buying it and helping them spread their propaganda which is meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Maduro’s mandate. It’s disgusting that Capriles can get away with this. The US said today that Maduro should respect the opposition’s right to free speech! BUT so far their free speech has consisted of murdering 7 people, attacking the homes of governors, and setting fires to party headquarters and a medical clinic with patients inside! Not to mention blocking major thoroughfares in Caracas during rush hour. All this because Capriles has called on them to cause chaos over a revision of a vote count that HE KNOWS is accurate.