The EU Election Observation Mission to Venezuela Preliminary Statement

[Piotr]

for the 2005 Parliamentary Elections.

http://www.eueomvenezuela.org/pre_statement_en.pdf

This document was written before the close of the election process and published on December 6th. It is the preliminary result of a month of observation by the European Union Election Observation Mission to Venezuela, which came to observe the process on the CNE's (the body in charge of organizing all electoral processes in Venezuela) request. The Mission will remain in Venezuela until December 21 to continue observation of the result of the process, and after departure will publish a final statement on February 6th 2006.

Its Preliminary Conclusions are:

"Wide sectors of the Venezuelan society do not have trust in the electoral processes and in the independence of the electoral authority.

The legal framework contains several inconsistencies that leave room for differing and contradictory interpretations.

The disclosure of a computerized list of citizens indicating their political preference in the signature recollection process for the Presidential Recall Referendum (so-called "Maisanta Program") generates fear that the secrecy of the vote could be violated.

The CNE, in a positive attempt to restore confidence in the electoral process, took significant steps to open the automated voting system to external scrutiny and to modify various aspects that were questioned by the opposition.

The CNE decision to eliminate the fingerprint capturing devices from the voting process was timely, effective and constructive.

The electoral campaign focused almost exclusively on the issue of distrust in the electoral process and lack of independence of the CNE. The debate on political party platforms was absent.

Both State and private media showed bias toward either of the two main political blocks.

The EU EOM took note with surprise of the withdrawal of the majority of the opposition parties only four days before the electoral event.

Election Day passed peacefully with low turnout. While the observers noted several irregularities in the voting procedures, the manual audit of the voting receipts revealed a high reliability of the voting machines.

These elections did not contribute to the reduction of the fracture in the Venezuelan society. In this sense, they represented a lost opportunity".