VenEconomy: OAS’ Almagro Speaks Out about Venezuela’s Electoral Landscape From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune November 11, 2015
For years, the Organization of American States (OAS), and particularly José Miguel Insulza, maintained a complicit silence and took ambiguous positions about the violations of human and political rights committed in Venezuela.
But that silence is over. The new Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, wrote a public letter to one of the directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, in which he clearly described Venezuela’s deeply questioned electoral system.
In his letter, dated November 10, Almagro responds to a statement issued by Lucena after rejecting an OAS offer of serving as an observer during a parliamentary election to be held on December 6 of this year.
Almagro begins his letter by noting that such rejection was based "on a political position and not on the arguments that make justice and the guarantees necessary for the development of an electoral process," telling Lucena that he supposes she is absolutely clear that the work of electoral justice requires to be at the forefront of the guarantees demanded by the parties, whether from the Government or the opposition.
He counters the argument of Lucena that "the electoral system in Venezuela is extraordinarily efficient," reminding her that "electoral guarantees not only refer to efficiency."
Almagro warns that the General Secretariat of the OAS cannot be "indifferent to the requests from the opposition and other countries on an electoral observation," because "we would be seriously neglecting our duty, which is to support the proper functioning of an electoral process for all the political parties involved."
He points out that "in this scenario we all have something to see, either by action or omission, but that fact definitively constitutes the essence of your work."
In addition, he reminds Lucena what her role in an electoral process in democracy is: "You are in charge of electoral justice; you are its guarantor. Everybody has to trust you, all the parties, all the citizens and the international community as a whole, because Venezuela has obligations to democracy that go beyond your own jurisdiction." In a clear and concise manner, he tells Lucena: "Your job is to ensure fair and transparent elections held with maximum guarantees. This means ensuring those guarantees months before the election. That’s what is necessary and doing what is necessary is a matter of electoral justice."
Then he analyzes seven specific aspects that "clearly violate rights within the framework of the electoral campaign and the electoral process itself," and against which neither he nor Lucena can look the other way. These are:
1) Absence of expenditure ceilings or controls for electoral campaigns.
2) Unequal access to the media for both candidates of the Government and the opposition.
3) New regulations on the location and characteristics of ballot papers that may lead to confusion when citizens cast their vote.
4) Implementation of security measures curtailing the freedom of expression.
5) Judicialization and threats to peaceful demonstrators.
6) Disqualifications and changes in the conditions of gender distribution and state representation that may affect the election outcome.
7) The intervention of political parties by the judiciary.
Almagro also focuses on three important points:
1) The state of emergency decrees and their impact on the electoral process, which he points out that even though they are not directly affecting the effective right to suffrage are "curtailing rights that might be indirectly affecting the electoral campaign" by restricting, among others, "the rights to the inviolability of the home and all private properties, to free transit across the national territory, to public or private gatherings without prior permission and to peaceful demonstration."
2) The freedom of the press and expression, because it is a matter of concern "all the threats, harassment and violence still being reported against journalists and the media in Venezuela," he said after citing specific examples.
3) The sentence of Leopoldo López, on which he concluded that "proscribing a candidate is denying him/her a basic civil right to be elected and at the same time, curtailing the basic civil right of a citizen to elect…" and reminds Lucena that "only the people proscribe and do through the vote."
Almagro finishes his letter to Lucena emphasizing that "December 6 belongs to everyone. Freedom, democracy and the respect for human rights are values that belong to everyone. Nobody should have the slightest doubt about the functioning of democracy. Our duty, yours Mrs. Lucena and mine, is to provide guarantees for everyone and not turning a blind eye or a deaf ear to the reality that is in front of us."
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