I've been trying to understand exactly what's going on in Venezuela without much success. I've yet to see any concrete discussion of the issues. Earlier today, I wrote to Roy S. Carson, editor in chief of vheadline.com, an independent news portal in Caracas, and asked him to explain why the opposition refuses to cooperate in validating the signatures that are being challenged. Specifically, what are the procedures to which they object?
In addition to some comments of his own, he sent me the following documents that I think journalists should read. Following are excerpts from Caracas an excellent article by Alan Cisco, published this weekend in Counterpunch. Then come Roy's own comments, along with a transcript of the Venezuelan government statement to the Carter Center/OAS.
Summing up: After grueling negotiation everyone agreed on a process for gathering the signatures for a referendum to recall Chávez. When the signature gathering drive was completed, the National Election Comission, whose five members had been approved by all concerned, invalidated more than one million of the three million signatures.
About 143,000 were either dead, under age, foreign born or otherwise ineligible. The rest were invalid because the identification data had not been filled in by the signers but by others, which was forbidden in the process all had agreed to follow. The election commission established a five day period for signers to go to 2700 centers to re-affirm the validity of their signatures. The opposition insists that these signatures must be honored and has gone to the streets to enforce its demands.
U.S. congressman Barney Frank told Carson, "I've spoken with the Carter Center and I believe that the signatures that were gathered without them filling out the forms, that there was a miscommunication, a misunderstanding and there does not appear to be any doubt about these signatures/thumbprints and that is pretty well verifiable."
Despite Frank's opinion, it's clear that everyone was aware of how the signatures were to be validated. As the Venezuelan government pointed out in its statement, the petitions would have been thrown out in California. Misunderstanding or not, why should anyone be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to kicking out a democratically elected president?
March 6 / 7, 2004
A Report from Caracas: Venezuela Equals Haiti?
Original Article
By ALAN CISCO
[Excerpts]
In the 1999 constitution, product of the constituent assembly fostered by Chavez, there is an unprecedented measure allowing for a recall vote on any elected official after half their term of office has expired, if it is petitioned by 20% of the electorate. Half of the Chavez's six year term ended last August 19, 2003.
The controversy is based around the decisions of the National Election Committee (CNE) on signatures collected for the referendum. The commission has five members, two from the Chavez side, and two from the opposition, but it took months to find a consensus candidate choice for the president, who would have the deciding vote. Finally the nod was given to Chavez sympathizer Francisco Carrasquero, a grey haired law professor of indigenous heritage with a reputation for impeccable integrity.
The petition drives for the recall elections were held at the end of November 2003. In the first round the Chavez supporters collected about six million signatures to recall some 37 opposition Congressional deputies. Then, from Nov 28 to Dec. 1, the opposition claimed to have collected the required 20% signatures for about 2/3 of the 30 deputies they tried to recall, and 3.4 million signatures against Chavez, more than the 2.4 million, or 20% of the electorate needed to solicit the recall vote.
The Chavez supporters, who had observers at every petition table to tally the signatures, alleged that the opposition had only collected 1.9 million signatures, and that the remaining 1.5 million were the result of a "megafraud". Recently obtained FOIA documents have documented that SUMATE, the main opposition group organizing their collection of signatures, received tens of thousands of dollars from the Republican Institute and the Endowment for Democracy.
On March 2, the CNE finally reported the preliminary results. It turned out that there were only slightly more than three million possibly valid signatures delivered, of which 143,000 were declared invalid because the supposed signers were either dead, under age, foreign born or otherwise ineligible.
The main debate, however, is over some 876,000 signatures on sheets where the signers' data, except for the signatures, are filled out in the same handwriting. The instructions for filling out the forms, agreed upon by the CNE, and disseminated in the information provided by the CNE and the opposition SUMATE, stated that each person had to fill out their own data, unless physically incapable of doing so. The opposition claims that these were done to save time, and all must be accepted as signatures in "good faith."
After much debate the CNE, in a 3 to 2 vote, decided not to invalidate these signatures, but rather to have a 5 day period of "repair", when those with questioned signatures would reaffirm their intentions in any of the 2700 centers to be set up around the country for this purpose.
A total of about one million signatures will be subject to revalidation in the repair process, and if the just over 600,000 people confirm their signatures, the referendum will go forward.
The indignant opposition has insisted that all the signatures on the forms with the same handwriting must be accepted, and claims that Chavez is simply dictating to the members of the CNE in order to avoid the referendum.
Understanding the signature ratification process
By Roy S.Carson
There were ten lines on each page printed on officially numbered sealed (watermarked) security paper. Problems have arisen because some over-enthusiastic people tried to hurry things up by filling in the details of each signatory and then taking only the signature and the thumb print.
The Elections Authority says it is reasonable to require each signatory to fill out his/her own name, address, ID (social security) number in the space provided, and that assistance should only be given where it is a matter of a blind or disabled person -- the opposition says it is the signatures and the thumb prints that matters and that so long as these are okay the forms should be recognized.
The government says that there are many instances of false ID papers being used and that many have signed twice or three times at different times and in different places to boost the numbers.
The Carter Center has taken a random selection of forms and counted the number that were incorrect and it appears that even if one took a statistical estimate on the remaining forms the result of the referendum petition would still be the same.
Transcript of the Venezuelan government's statement in dialogue held with the Carter Center/OAS/on the signature ratification process in Venezuela
Main Points
[1] It is very important that the Rule of Law be respected in Venezuela. For more than 2 years now the Venezuelan opposition has refused to respect the rule of law. They have tried a military coup, and 4 times they have tried to overthrow the government by means of strikes; the last oil strike devastated our economy and Venezuela is still recovering.
The opposition has only recently agreed to abide by the rule of law, and their commitment is very tentative and contingent. The leaders of the opposition have not committed to respect the rule of law if the decisions of the CNE or TSJ go against them.
It would be tragic, and dangerous, if international observers were to lend legitimacy to further extra-legal attempts to overthrow the government, by indicating that the referendum process has not been legitimate.
[2] The CNE is a legitimate elections board, chosen in accordance with Venezuela's laws and constitution. When the CNE was chosen, the opposition was unanimous in its approval of the selection. It would be a somewhat different story if the government had used its power to appoint a CNE that it could control. But this was not the case; the appointment of the fifth member went to the Supreme Court, and all sides applauded the Court's selection.
It is wrong and disingenuous for the opposition, and much of the international press, to now claim that the CNE is partisan simply because the majority of the CNE has made decisions that the opposition does not like.
[3] If either party does not agree with the decision of the CNE regarding the petitions, it can appeal to the TSJ. That is how the rule of law works in a constitutional democracy. It is fair for the government to do so, just as Governor Gray Davis of California had the right to appeal the decisions of the California elections board. And the opposition also has this right, and therefore has no right to resort to extra-legal methods; it would be wrong and very dangerous to our democracy for the international community to encourage a return to illegality, by indicating that the government is obstructing democracy simply by exercising its right to appeal an adverse decision from the CNE.
[4] The petition forms would be clearly illegal under California law, and Venezuela's own CNE would be within their legal authority to throw them out. This is not just a technicality; there are reasons for such rules, mainly to avoid fraud, and this is why signatures that violate such laws in the United States are often disqualified. In the case of the petition forms, it is clearly much easier to forge a signature (especially in Venezuela, where most signatures are illegible) than to forge all of the information required of a signer. Since it was well known that the signer was supposed to fill in the required information himself/herself, there is no obvious reason other than fraud to have so many petition forms.
Signatures gathered after the designated polling period are also clearly illegal. The opposition held on to the petitions, for unexplained reasons, for 19 days after the polls closed. It does not take 19 days to make Xerox copies of the documents. The presumption of fraud and/or gathering of illegal signatures is very strong.
[5] In the case of illegal signatures, whether the petition forms, signatures gathered after the deadline, or others, the CNE has the option of publishing the corresponding cedulas and allowing people to come forward an validate their signature. This would be a generous compromise, allowing the will of the signers (and non-signers) to be respected, without sacrificing the need to protect against fraud. But the CNE would not be overstepping its authority if it, following the common practice in the United States, were to throw out signatures that did not conform to legal requirements.
[6] The Carter Center has a pivotal role in protecting democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela. As you know, the OAS is often subject to the political pressures of its most powerful member country, the United States. To take just one example, Marta Altolaguirre, former president of the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, stated last year that "Cuba has the worst human rights record in the region, followed by Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti." As any expert on human rights in Latin America can attest, this is a false statement. As you know, by any criterion that places Cuba as the worst human rights violator (e.g. freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, etc.), Venezuela is nowhere close.
There are numerous other examples indicating that the United States government -- which supported the April 2002 military coup, continues to fund Venezuelan opposition groups, and has recently indicated (falsely) that the Venezuelan government has agreed to hold a recall referendum -- has undue influence on the OAS in matters pertaining to Venezuela
The world is therefore depending on the Carter Center to defend the rule of law in Venezuela. Even if you do not agree with the decision of the CNE, or a decision of either party to appeal to the TSJ, it is essential that the Carter Center defend the rule of law, because there is no guarantee that anyone else in the international community will do so.
[7] When the U.S. Supreme Court made what appeared to be a partisan decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, in the 2000 presidential elections in the U.S., the consensus was that the rule of law should be respected. This despite the fact that many legal scholars questioned the decision, and a subsequent Florida recount sponsored by the NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers later found that Gore had won Florida and therefore the election. That is how a constitutional democracy works: even in the face of a controversial and seriously flawed election, the rule of law prevails.
The Venezuelan government has respected the constitution and the rule of law throughout this period of conflict. It has always maintained a recall referendum would be held if the opposition could gather the legally required signatures, and will honor that pledge.
Venezuela asks nothing more from the international community than they respect the rule of law in Venezuela, the same as they would in the United States or any other democracy. To do otherwise is to risk causing great harm to our efforts at resolving our conflicts peacefully.
Posted by jules_siegel at March 6, 2004 07:33 PM | TrackBack