Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas
On March 28, supporters of the head of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), Dr Jorge Rodriguez, who announced his resignation the day before, marched to the gates of the National Assembly. Rodriguez said he was leaving the position in the face of a relentless campaign of criticism by the right-wing opposition, which accused him of bias toward the left-wing government of President Hugo Chavez.
The protest was led by the Movement of Teachers for Equality, which brought flowers and placards that read "Jorge, our friend, the people are with you!" and "Uh, ah, Jorge, don't go!"
"The important thing is the defence of the electoral system", Rodriguez said by way of explanation for his decision, according to the March 29 issue of the Ultimas Noticias daily. Rodriguez declared his intention to continue to participate in the revolutionary process being led by the Chavez government.
Chavez, who has strong support from Venezuela's poor majority, has faced a campaign of opposition — including a failed military coup and a bosses' lockout — from the privileged minority that ran the country before his election in 1998.
Despite pro-Chavez forces winning a string of national, local and regional ballots since Chavez took office, the opposition, which is supported and funded by the US government, claims that the president is moving Venezuela towards a dictatorship.
Rodriguez explained, "We should not allow [the opposition] to destroy what we have built. Democracy can not be trafficked, nor negotiated away. We must not go backwards one millimetre. The minority are resisting democracy, and we mustn't give one drop of water to the enemies of democracy."
Referring to the controversy over the electronic system of voting introduced by the CNE as part of its campaign to clean up the electoral system and help prevent fraud, Rodriguez commented: "We must protect the system of electronic voting. We must not allow them to return to the practice of rubbing out votes."
The opposition had insisted it would not run a candidate in the upcoming December presidential election unless Rodriguez was removed as CNE president. "[The opposition] will have to find another excuse for not participating in the electoral calendar", Rodriguez told a March 27 press conference. His resignation is intended to prevent the opposition from casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election's outcome, which is expected to be a victory for Chavez.
Rodriguez, a highly respected figure who is not aligned to any party, is credited with having done a remarkable job in cleaning up the electoral register for the 2004 referendum on whether to recall Chavez part-way through his presidential term.
Despite opposition complaints following the clean-up, a CNE-initiated independent inquiry into the register carried out by the Inter-American Human Rights Center declared it did not find evidence of impropriety, according to a March 27 Venezuelanalysis.com article.
The new system of voting involved fingerprinting to verify the casting of votes. Claiming the system was open to abuse, in the lead-up to the December 2005 National Assembly election the opposition demanded that the system be removed. While rejecting the argument that the system potentially violated the ballot's secrecy, the CNE nonetheless agreed to the demand in order to clear away any obstacles for the opposition to participate.
Despite this, the opposition boycotted the election, which polls had predicted it would be all but wiped out in. As a result, the National Assembly now consists only of delegates from pro-Chavez parties.
Opposition complaints about Rodriguez continued despite the March 15 release of the final report on the elections by the European Union's Electoral Observer Commission, which, while pointing to areas where the system could be improved, reaffirmed the election's validity. "We have no doubts that the results [of the election] are legitimate", said the head of the observer mission, Jose Silva Pineda, according to a March 16 Venezuelanalysis.com report.
According to Ultimas Noticias, more than 250 people have been nominated for Rodriguez's former position. The new CNE president, along with four other members of the council, will be announced in early May.
From Green Left Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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