Venezuela election: UN panel finds lack of ‘transparency and integrity’

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 15, 2024 / 16:43 pm (CNA).

The United Nations panel of election experts that was in Venezuela during the July 28 presidential elections published an interim report on the process, noting that it “fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures that are essential to holding credible elections.”

The four U.N. experts were invited by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) for the purpose of reporting internally and privately to the secretary-general of the organization, Antonio Guterres, and to the CNE itself on the election process and to make recommendations on points to improve in the future.

The panel explained that its work in Venezuela was not that of an observation mission and had not planned to make a public judgment on the result of the vote. Nevertheless, the experts published their preliminary report on Aug. 13, which sparked adverse reactions from leaders of the ruling United Socialist Party, including National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez.

The panel of experts also said the CNE “did not follow national legal and regulatory provisions, and all stipulated deadlines were missed.”

In the panel’s experience, the announcement of an election result — without the publication of its details or the delivery of tabulated results to the candidates — is unprecedented in contemporary democratic elections.

“This had a negative impact on confidence in the outcome announced by the CNE among a large part of the Venezuelan electorate,” the panel stated.

Finally, the panel referenced local reports, which claim that at least 20 people lost their lives in the protests that followed the election results and that more than 1,000 have been arrested by state security forces.

“The panel was regrettably — and despite a request sent by note verbale [a form of communication in diplomacy] — not able to meet the CNE board before the panel’s departure,” the U.N. report concluded.

New apostolic nuncio presents credentials to Maduro

Amid doubts about the legitimacy of the official election results, which declared current president Nicolás Maduro the winner, the new apostolic nuncio in Venezuela presented his diplomatic credentials to the leader of the socialist regime on Aug. 13 at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, a Spaniard, spoke for about 20 minutes with Maduro in the Sol del Perú room of the presidential palace. At the end of the meeting, the president presented the apostolic nuncio with an artistic representation of the Venezuelan Blessed José Gregorio Hernández.

Ortega was appointed to his new diplomatic mission by Pope Francis on May 14. The 61-year-old prelate had been the apostolic nuncio in Chile since 2019 and now occupies the vacant post left by Archbishop Aldo Giordano — the last apostolic nuncio in Venezuela — who died in Belgium in 2021, a victim of complications from COVID-19.

The presentation of credentials is a diplomatic protocol ceremony in which the head of the accrediting state sends to the head of the receiving state — in this case Pope Francis — a document informing him of the appointment of a certain person as head of the diplomatic mission in the country.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.