{"id":21786,"date":"2012-10-01T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=21786"},"modified":"2012-09-27T08:38:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T07:38:48","slug":"former-us-president-carter-venezuelan-electoral-system-best-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/10\/former-us-president-carter-venezuelan-electoral-system-best-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Former US President Carter: Venezuelan Electoral System \u201cBest in the World\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former US President Jimmy Carter has declared that Venezuela\u2019s electoral system is the best in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking at an annual event last week [16 Sep 2012] in Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist stated, \u201cAs a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we\u2019ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela has developed a fully automated touch-screen\u00a0voting system, which now uses thumbprint recognition technology and prints off a receipt to confirm voters\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n

In the context of the Carter Centre\u2019s work monitoring electoral processes around the globe, Carter also disclosed his opinion that in the US \u201cwe have one of the worst election processes in the world, and it\u2019s almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money,\u201d he said referring to lack of controls over private campaign donations.<\/p>\n

The comments come with just three weeks before Venezuelans go to the polls on 7 October, in a historic presidential election in which socialist incumbent President Hugo Chavez is standing against right-wing challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski of the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition.<\/p>\n

Chavez welcomed Carter\u2019s comments, stating yesterday that \u201che [Carter] has spoken the truth because he has verified it. We say that the Venezuelan electoral system is one of the best in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chavez also reported that he had had a forty minute conversation with the ex-Democrat president yesterday, and said that Carter, \u201cas Fidel [Castro] says, is a man of honour\u201d. The Carter Centre has recently confirmed it will not send an official delegation to accompany the presidential election, but may have officials observe the process on an individual basis.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) electoral accompaniment delegation arrived yesterday in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The delegation\u2019s head, former Argentinian vice-president Carlos Alvarez, mentioned that this was the Unasur\u2019s first electoral observation mission, and that \u201cfor us it\u2019s fundamental to consolidate our democracies, because it\u2019s taken us a lot of struggle, effort and time to establish [democracy] in our countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

In press comments after meeting with officials from Venezuela\u2019s National Electoral Council (CNE) Alvarez declared that based on his experience of electoral observation in South America, \u201dVenezuela has one of the most advanced electoral systems in the region and the continent, that grants a great deal of confidence and transparency\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, secretary of the MUD, Ram\u00f3n Guillermo Aveledo, accused the CNE yesterday of being \u201cbiased\u201d, and said that it doesn\u2019t adhere to the National Constitution nor electoral law. In an interview with opposition TV station Globovision, he clarified his opinion that \u201cwe [the MUD] trust the voting system\u201d but that CNE officials \u201chave a preference\u201d for the government.<\/p>\n

The CNE has issued warnings regarding both the MUD and Chavez\u2019s Carabobo Command for infringements of campaign rules relating to electoral publicity and advertising space.<\/p>\n

Pro-Chavez sources have speculated that the opposition is planning not to recognise the CNE results in the likely event of a Chavez victory on 7 October. In July, Chavez and Capriles signed an accord by which both agreed to recognise the result announced by the CNE.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 venezuelanalysis.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking at an annual event last week [16 Sep 2012] in Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist stated, \u201cAs a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we\u2019ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}