Buenos Aires Herald 
The 2024 presidential election in Venezuela “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic,” electoral watchdog The Carter Center announced Tuesday evening. Tension continues to run high in Caracas and police once again surrounded the Argentine Embassy in the Venezuelan capital, where six opposition members requesting political asylum are currently located.
The Carter Center published a communiqué on X saying said it was not able to verify the authenticity of the results announced by the country’s National Electoral Center (CNE, by its Spanish initials). “The electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles,” the NGO stated.
The CNE had authorized The Carter Center, along with the United Nations, to audit the electoral process throughout election day and the following vote count.
However, its members unexpectedly left the country on Tuesday and canceled the presentation of their report as tension and violence rose after President Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won his second reelection with 51.2% of the votes.
Former United States President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn created The Carter Center in 1982. The center had previously audited other electoral processes in Venezuela and backed their legitimacy, including the 1998 election that first took late Hugo Chávez to the presidency. They also vetted a 2004 referendum on whether to keep Chávez in power, as well as the 2012 presidential election, and validated both processes.
The NGO stated that the current electoral process “violated numerous provisions of its own national laws” and took place “in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organizations, and the media.” During election day, “the CNE demonstrated a clear bias in favor of the incumbent.”
The statement also listed some of the problems registered during the election: short deadlines that hurt voter registration, relatively few places of registration, and minimal public information. Venezuelans abroad, meanwhile, faced “excessive legal requirements to register,” resulting in very low numbers.
They mentioned problems regarding party and candidate registration, as well as unequal conditions among candidates during the campaign.
While Venezuelans did vote peacefully, there were “reports of restrictions on access to many polling centers for domestic observers and opposition party witnesses; potential pressure on voters […]; and incidents of tension or violence reported in some localities.”
“However, the CNE’s complete lack of transparency in announcing the results undermined [voters’] efforts.”
Police surrounds Argentine Embassy again
Police forces once again surrounded the Argentine Embassy in Caracas on Wednesday, the campaign team of opposition leader María Corina Machado announced in a post on X. “We call on neighbors to stop this,” they wrote.
The Argentine foreign ministry told the Herald they had only been informed of one police car parked outside the embassy.
On Tuesday, the Venezuelan government gave diplomats and personnel in the Argentine embassy in Caracas 72 hours to leave the country after Argentina formally rejected the results announced by the CNE. The authorities gave the diplomats safety guarantees during that period of time, but not for the six Venezuelans who have been taking political asylum in the embassy since March 20.
Pedro Urruchurtu, a collaborator of Machado — who is inside the embassy — had already warned about officers from the national police tactical team attempting to take over the building while wearing hoods and carrying rifles on Monday evening, although they left later in the night.
The Venezuelan public power company also cut the power to the embassy building on Tuesday noon and it remained that way as of the early hours of Wednesday, according to a post from Machado’s campaign team.
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Cover photo: A woman protesting outside the Venezuelan Embassy in Buenos Aires with a sign saying “I wasn’t able to vote, vote for me”. Credit: Ana Pouchard Serra
