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This Tuesday, November 23, the head of the Electoral Observation Mission of the European Union affirmed that in the elections last Sunday there were some irregularities regarding the use of State funds and the excessive dominance of the ruling party in public channels. However, he admitted an improvement in the system with respect to the last three electoral processes.
The elections that took place in Venezuela last weekend, where the ruling party won in 20 of 23 states, in the city of Caracas had the particularity of having the presence of an Electoral Observation Mission of the European Union (EOM-EU) that monitored the procedure and was watching that everything developed along the legal and democratic lanes.
This Tuesday, November 22, the head of the delegation, Isabel Santos, offered a press conference where she told details of the report they made regarding electoral day. The most outstanding note was the appearance of “extended use of State resources” despite the fact that there are penalties for financing and advertising campaigns.
Going into more detail, the preliminary report states that there was delivery of goods such as “food packages, gas cylinders or water pumps”, which was to the detriment of the equality of conditions with the other parties.
Santos explained that the campaign of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela was dominant throughout the country, that it had the participation of public officials and that for the National Electoral Council they were not deserving of sanctions for violations. “The CNE needs to be strengthened in its sanctioning powers,” he remarked.
Another outstanding point of the preliminary report was that the state and private media had a “very significant and disproportionately favorable” presence of the PSUV candidates over that of the opponents.
Santos also mentioned that “beyond the unbalanced coverage”, the frequent appearances of Diosdado Cabello – vice president of the PSUV – in state media directing attacks against the opposition go against international standards of impartial coverage.
Commission admits an improvement with respect to the last electoral processes
Meanwhile, the head of the EU-EOM stressed that after 15 years the European Union could observe elections in Venezuela. “This has been possible thanks to the invitation of the CNE,” he said.
He also highlighted the dialogue process of the Venezuelan political actors that led to this proposal and admitted that there was an evolution with respect to the last three elections despite “persistence of structural deficiencies.”
He clarified that this preliminary document is a “useful tool to improve” future electoral processes and that it is a “technical approximation” of the moment of the elections, so it cannot be thought of as an “object of political instrumentalization”.
The participation of the EU observers took place in the 23 Venezuelan states and Caracas and they visited 665 voting centers, which is just over 1,300 tables.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/eu-highlights-the-use-of-state-resources-in-the-venezuelan-regionals-although-it-admits-improvements/
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