MIAMI (AP) — A panel of experts from the United Nations said Venezuela’s recent presidential elections lacked “basic transparency and integrity,” adding an important voice to those who have cast doubt on President Nicolás Maduro’s claim he won the contest.
A four-member team sent by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres was in Caracas for over a month in the run up to the July 28 election, one of the few independent outside observers invited by Maduro’s government.
While the U.N. group praised the logistic organization of the voting, it harshly criticized the National Electoral Council, or CNE, for flouting local rules and announcing Maduro the winner without tabulated results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, something it said “had no precedent in contemporary democratic elections.”
“This had a negative impact on confidence in the outcome announced by the CNE among a large part of the Venezuelan electorate,” the U.N. experts said in a statement late Tuesday.
The U.N. statement follows criticism by another invited observer, the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which said it could not verify the CNE’s results. Venezuela’s foreign minister has blasted the Carter Center, accusing it of lying and servings as a tool of U.S. “imperialism.”
While the U.N. team stopped short of validating claims by the opposition that its candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González, trounced Maduro by a more than 2-to-1 margin, it said that the voting records the anti-Maduro coalition published online appeared to exhibit all of the original security features.
“This suggests a key transparency safeguard may be available, as intended, with respect to any officially released results,” the experts added, noting that electoral authorities failed to meet with the group prior to the mission’s departure from Venezuela five days after voting.
Since the election, security forces have arrested more than 2,000 people for demonstrating against Maduro or casting doubt on his claims that he won a third term.
Separately on Tuesday, the U.N.’s top human rights official expressed concern over the arbitrary detentions and “disproportionate use of force” in Venezuela as part of the crackdown.
“It is especially troubling that so many people are being detained, accused or charged either with incitement to hatred or under counterterrorism legislation,” U.N. High Commissioner for…