(Caracas) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday called on EU observers of “enemies” and “spies” to deny the abuses pointed out in their work report for the recent local elections.
“Those who came as opponents, the representatives of the EU spies, did not find any elements to criticize the electoral system,” he said. Maduro declared, “Criticizing the draft report as full of updates and bad.”
“They are not international observers. They are EU spies!”, The president began.
Were looking for […] To tarnish Venezuela’s flawless and democratic electoral process, but they have not succeeded, ”Maduro added in a televised address.
“Transparent, credible, fair, secure and free elections have taken place.
In the November 21 regional and municipal elections, power was won in 19 of the 23 states, while the Chavez family’s stronghold of Parinas has yet to be announced.
The EU Monitoring Group on Tuesday stressed that a number of irregularities had taken place during the submission of its initial report.
“Our aim was to observe the lack of judicial independence, non-compliance with the rule of law and the fact that some laws have affected the equality, balance and transparency of the conditions of the election,” the task force leader confirmed. , Isabel Santos, refers to the verification of certain uses of “government resources” and “arbitrary”.
Another criticism: the presence of “pundos rojos” (red dots) near polling stations, illegal checkpoints run by President Maduro’s party, whose color is red.
This work, carried out for the first time in 15 years in Venezuela, noted improvements in the “conditions” of voting compared to previous polls and noted that “the electoral structure meets most of the basic international criteria.”
The election was marked by the return of the opposition after a boycott of the 2020 legislative elections and the 2018 presidential election.
According to most observers, the highly divided opposition has failed to organize itself to compete with President Maduro’s party, but has been weakened by the unprecedented economic crisis in the oil country.
The force seeking to remove part of the embargo, especially from the United States, which does not recognize President Maduro, made a number of concessions in this election to deliver on the promises of goodwill and democracy to the international community.
In particular, he acknowledged the reform of the Electoral Council and the existence of a European mission.
According to the opposition, this first turnout in the 2017 election will be the starting point for the 2024 presidential election.