CARACAS, Apr 28: Venezuela’s electoral authority said the opposition created false hopes about a vote audit being prepared after President Nicolas Maduro’s narrow election win, adding that his rival had failed to present compelling proof of foul play.
The National Electoral Council had stressed from the start that the “expanded” audit it agreed to after the April 14 vote would not change the results, which made Maduro the successor to the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles says there were thousands of irregularities during the vote, and that his own calculations showed he won. He says he will challenge the outcome in the OPEC nation’s courts.
“We have always insisted that Capriles had the right to challenge the process,” Tibisay Lucena, president of the electoral council, yesterday said in a televised national broadcast.
“But it is also his obligation to present proof.”
She dismissed various opposition submissions alleging voting irregularities as lacking key details, and said Capriles had subsequently tried to present the audit in very different terms than the electoral council had agreed to.
“It has been manipulated to generate false expectations about the process, including making it look like the consequence of the wider audit could affect the election results,” she said.
Capriles has said that unless the audit includes all the relevant paperwork from polling centers, his team would not take part in a process that would end up being “a joke.”
He has conceded that his legal challenge to Maduro’s election faces a difficult path through the South American country’s courts. Critics say Chavez packed the judiciary with loyal political appointees during his 14 years in power. More (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel