UN Preliminary Report on Venezuelan Elections is Filled With Lies and Contradictions: CNE

Venezuelans at the headquarters of the Executive branch in Caracas, Aug. 2024. Photo: teleSUR

August 14, 2024 Hour: 2:24 pm

‘Truth will prevail over slander,’ the members of the National Electoral Council pointed out.

On Wednesday, the National Electoral Council (CNE) condemned the “Preliminary Report” of the United Nations (UN) Panel of Experts on the Venezuelan presidential elections held on July 28.

All CNE members emphasized that the UN document is filled with politically motivated lies and contradictions. The Venezuelan electoral authority’s statement is presented below:

“The Electoral Power of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns the publication of the so-called ‘Preliminary Report’ of the United Nations panel of experts on the presidential election conducted in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on July 28, 2024. The report is illegal and contrary to the UN principles, violating the terms of reference agreed upon with this Constitutional Power, and, above all, filled with lies and contradictions.

The UN experts panesl accompanied the entire electoral process by express invitation of the CNE, having broad and permanent support throughout its deployment, as they are compelled to admit in the infamous ‘Preliminary Report.’

However, the publication of an alleged ‘report’ was not within their functions and demonstrates the perverse political intent of this dissemination, consisting of fallacious and distorted arguments. According to point 4 of the terms of reference agreed upon between the UN and the CNE on June 29, 2024: ‘The Panel is not an observation mission and, therefore, will not issue any public statement or judgment on the process and/or the outcome of the elections.’

By doing so, this UN experts panel not only betrayed what was explicitly agreed upon with the CNE but also violated the rules established by the United Nations itself, as ‘unlike UN election observation missions, which require a specific mandate from the Security Council or the General Assembly… electoral expert panels do not issue public statements evaluating the overall conduct of an electoral process or its results.’

Beyond the violations of professional ethics by the team of supposed technicians, the content of this ‘report’ is a pamphlet, and their ‘expertise’ is utterly discredited by the poor and easily refutable arguments they use to try to delegitimize the impeccable and transparent electoral process conducted on July 28, as nearly a thousand observers from all corners of the planet could verify. Unlike this UN expert panel, these observers accompanied the Venezuelan people with integrity and honesty in the celebration of their vigorous participatory and protagonistic democracy.

Among the lies attempted in the fraudulent ‘Report,’ the following stand out:

• In Point 6, they claim that there were ‘last-minute changes to polling stations.’ This is absolutely false, and no case or complaint was presented to support this lie. All Venezuelans registered in the electoral register know that they can consult their assigned polling station in advance, which is not changed on voting day.

• In Point 9, although unlike their friends at the Carter Center, they do admit that the data transmission process was interrupted after the polls closed, they nonetheless attempt to cast doubt on the terrorist cyberattack suffered by the CNE platform starting on the night of July 28 and continuing to this day, claiming that no information or explanation was provided. Not only has precise information about this attack been provided since that very night, but national and international companies and specialists have confirmed what happened, and, moreover, the terrorists themselves have claimed responsibility for these crimes on various social networks, extending them later to other areas of the Venezuelan state.

• Despite the delay in the transmission process of results, the CNE applied contingency protocols, achieving an 80 percent transmission of records, with an irreversible result in favor of candidate Nicolas Maduro. After the bulletin to the nation was announced, the dissemination of results could not be carried out due to continuous attacks on dissemination platforms, which are exposed to the Internet.

• Regarding the speculations made in Point 11, it must be reminded to these ‘experts’ that neither the regulations nor the protocol foresee the delivery of records to observers. On the other hand, in Venezuela, voting is electronic, and the scrutiny is automated, as is the totalization, where data integrity is guaranteed through certification schemes. Manual records are vulnerable to falsification, as indeed happened later by some political actors, because there is no technical element guaranteeing their integrity.

• In Point 12, they shamelessly try to validate the scam published by the campaign team of one of the candidates, which clearly shows the political agenda guiding them and the interests they serve. Once again, they must be reminded of the protocol they agreed to with the CNE, according to which the UN experts panel was not authorized to conduct audits on supposed records that have no legal standing, as they were not provided by the electoral authority. These ‘experts’ engage in an illegal act by validating alleged records from unofficial sources.

With their political agenda against the Venezuelan people, these individuals undermine the credibility and reliability of the United Nations while mocking the trust placed in them by its member states.

The National Electoral Council, one of the five independent powers that make up the Venezuelan State, according to our Constitutional mandate, reaffirms to the national and international community that despite the unjustifiable attacks on our electoral system and our good faith, the truth will prevail over slander.”