A Monumental Fraud in Venezuela's Voting
The Wall Street Journal
Monday, August 30th, 2004 - As a member of the Coordinadora Democratica Commission that negotiated the agreement with the Carter Center and the Organization of American States (OAS) to oversee the referendum to recall Hugo Chavez, I read, with dismay and alarm, President Jimmy Carter's Aug. 24 Letter to the Editor in reference to Mary O'Grady's Aug. 20 Americas column "Observers Rush to Judgment in Caracas."
With dismay, to see how a Nobel Prize winner is capable of misrepresenting the facts of the electoral process, as well as covering up actions of an autocratic regime that for almost two years managed to postpone the referendum, abusing all its powers and using all kinds of "dirty tricks." And with alarm for his irresponsible rush to validate a slow-motion fraud process that started to occur more than a year before and that culminated with a monumental electronic fraud. Nevertheless, Mr. Carter writes: "We observed the entire voting process without limitation or restraint . . . and extra care was taken to ensure accuracy."
That's quite an assertion when in reality Mr. Carter accepted being reduced by the government-controlled electoral council to the role of a mere onlooker who was not even allowed to be present in the electoral control center during the process. A role that the European Community naturally refused to accept.
Back in Florida in 2000, Mr. Carter demanded the manual count of all votes to reach "definitive and exact electoral results." Why he resorted to a double standard in our case is a matter for which he probably will never have any satisfactory explanation. He concluded in 2000: "The American people can wait for five or six days to get the definitive electoral results."
In Venezuela he only waited 24 hours. Mr. Carter is right: "Venezuela's voters have spoken," but he preferred not to count them.
Rafael Alfonzo
Caracas, Venezuela
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