Tag Archives: presidential elections

Sep
10
2013
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ICYMI: Capriles appeals to OAS human rights commission

BBC News
September 9, 2013

69757497 69757496 ICYMI: Capriles appeals to OAS human rights commission

Courtesy of: AFP

The defeated Venezuelan presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles, has filed a request at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to declare the April election void.

Mr Capriles alleges there was widespread fraud in the vote narrowly won by acting president Nicolas Maduro.

Last month, the Venezuelan Supreme Court rejected a final plea by Mr Capriles to have the vote annulled.

Mr Capriles vowed to take his fight beyond Venezuela.

Mr Maduro has repeatedly rejected the opposition allegations of fraud.

‘Supranational power’

He also dismissed the Washington-based human rights organisation as lacking credibility.

He praised the late president, Hugo Chavez, for beginning proceedings to pull out from the body last year.

Venezuela is due to officially withdraw from the Commission on Tuesday.

Mr Maduro accused the OAS Human Rights Commission of hating and despising Latin America

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is part of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

“They believe they are a supranational power, a power above the legitimate governments of the continent. Their time is passed,” said Mr Maduro.

The Venezuelan government decision was criticised by Amnesty International as “a serious setback for the rights of Venezuelans.”

‘Reinstate rights’

Opposition politician Ramon Jose Medina filed the request, signed by Mr Capriles, at the OAS headquarters.

The Venezuelan government “must be forced to reinstate the rights they violated,” said Mr Medina.

“The elections, which were fraudulent, must be repeated and the electoral process must be free and fair.”

Mr Maduro won the 14 April vote by less than 1.5 percentage points – about 200,000 votes.

Mr Chavez died on 5 March after a long battle against cancer.

Before going to Cuba for a last round of treatment in December, he appointed Mr Maduro as his preferred successor.

To read this article at BBC News, please click here.

 
Aug
2
2013
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In Case You Missed It…Articles Roundup Week of 8/2/13

caprilesguarenas guatire.520.360 e1375469944950 In Case You Missed It…Articles Roundup Week of 8/2/13

Courtesy of: El Universal

This week: The Venezuelan government tightens its control over the media as authorities freeze the assets of “El Nacional” owner Miguel Henrique Otero; Otero then accuses the government of trying to intimidate and silence his paper; pro-government deputies in Venezuela revoke the immunity of opposition lawmaker Richard Mardo and drum up “corruption” charges; Henrique Capriles responds by accusing the PSUV of “trashing” the Venezuelan constitution. An Economic Survey conducted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean shows that inflation takes a bigger toll on Venezuela’s poor than in any other Latin American country; daily sales of U.S. dollars to the private sector sink 13 percent as the cost of government imports and foreign debt payments take money from the private sector; Venezuela’s strong currency controls create opportunities for illegal profiteering schemes. A poll conducted by the Venezuelan Data Analysis Institute (Ivad) reveals that today 45.1 percent of Venezuelans would vote for Capriles, while only 39.3 percent would choose Maduro; former ambassador Otto Reich files a lawsuit against three Venezuelan businessmen for bribery; seven U.S. Senators introduce a bill condemning violence against the opposition in Venezuela.

Venezuela Freezes Assets of Opposition Newspaper Editor, Wall Street Journal

Venezuelan authorities have frozen the assets of Miguel Henrique Otero, the editor and owner one of the country’s largest opposition-leaning newspaper, the attorney general’s office announced Saturday.

Editor: Venezuela Government Trying to Silence Us, Associated Press

The head of one Venezuela’s last two nationally circulating opposition newspapers accused the leftist government on Monday of trying to intimidate and silence it.

Pro-gov’t deputies lift immunity of opposition lawmaker Richard Mardo, El Universal

During the regular session held at the Venezuelan Parliament on Tuesday, pro-government legislators lifted the parliamentary immunity of opposition legislator Richard Mardo on corruption accusations filed by Parliament’s Speaker Diosdado Cabello and endorsed by the president of the Comptrollership Committee of the Parliament, Pedro Carreño, both ruling party legislators.

Capriles: Deputies trashed the Constitution by revoking Mardo’s immunity, El Universal

During a public event at a local community, Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski brought out the issue of opposition Legislator Richard Mardo and his parliamentary immunity –revoked– in Parliament, and stated that the “circumstantial majority in Parliament trampled on the Constitution and the decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.”

Venezuela the only country where inflation lashes the poor the most, El Universal

Fairer distribution of national income has not been enough to solve the imbalance of the Venezuelan economy, which lashes the most vulnerable sector of society: the poor.

Daily US dollar sale to the private sector down 13%, El Universal

Claiming that the Venezuelan private sector was sold USD 125 million on a daily basis for ordinary imports in the first half of the year via both the Latin America Integration Association (Aladi) and the Unified System for Regional Compensation (Sucre), Armando León, member of the board of directors of the Central Bank of Venezuela, rejected allegations that authorities sold a lower amount of foreign currency with respect to the same period last year.

Venezuelan gov’t sucks up the dollars required by the private sector, El Universal

The minutes of meetings recording the decisions made by the Central Bank of Venezuela’s Board of Directors; the bank’s balance of payments; and the performances of both the Transaction System for Foreign Currency Denominated Securities (Sitme) and the Ancillary Foreign Currency Administration System (Sicad) are all cut pieces that are to be fitted together into a big jigsaw puzzle wherein foreign currency availability for the private sector is plummeting.

Venezuela central bank to sell $180 mln in forex auction, Reuters

Venezuela’s central bank said on Friday it would auction $180 million under its revamped currency exchange system known as Sicad, part of an effort to boost the flow of dollars to the economy and ease product shortages.

How Venezuelan Used ‘Scrape’ to Make Six Times Her Salary, Bloomberg

Venezuela’s currency controls are turning trips abroad into profitable junkets. A 27-year-old trade analyst from Caracas said she earned six times her monthly salary by traveling in April to Lima, where a business swiped her credit card and gave her $1,600 cash, charged at the official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar.

Poll shows 45.1% of Venezuelans would vote Capriles, El Universal

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election held in Venezuela last April 14, a survey conducted by the Venezuelan Data Analysis Institute (Ivad), Government Management, and Political Situation, showed that 45.1% of Venezuelans would vote Henrique Capriles over 39.3% who said would vote Nicolás Maduro.

Presumed corruption in Pdvsa and CVG aired in the United States, El Universal

The New York District Court admitted last Tuesday a racketeering and defamation lawsuit filed by US former ambassador Otto Reich against the partners of Derwick Associates in relation to contracts for the installation of electrical system executed with state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela, electricity utility Corpoelec and the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation.

Suit Alleges Graft in Venezuelan Contracts, Wall Street Journal

A former top U.S. diplomat filed a lawsuit against three young Venezuelan businessmen whom he accuses of bribing senior Venezuelan officials in exchange for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The suit puts a spotlight on a group of executives who the diplomat, Otto Reich, and other critics say have made fortunes from links to Venezuela’s self-proclaimed socialist government.

US senators condemn political violence in Venezuela, Global Post

Seven US senators from both parties introduced a bill condemning violence against the opposition in Venezuela, calling for dialogue after a contested election.

 
Apr
18
2013
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ICYMI: Venezuela’s Maduro Fails to Imitate Chávez’ Success

Atlantic Sentinel
April 15, 2013
By Nick Ottens

130414 nicolas maduro ap 605 e1366308092446 ICYMI: Venezuela’s Maduro Fails to Imitate Chávez’ Success

Courtesy of: Associated Press

Acting president Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner in Venezuela’s election on Sunday, defeating the opposition’s candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski by over two hundred thousand votes, according to the state’s election board.

Maduro succeeds the Latin American nation’s fiery socialist leader Hugo Chávez who died of cancer last month after fourteen years in power.

Although Capriles, who won 44 percent of the votes in last year’s election against Chávez and just under 49.1 percent on Sunday, according to the official results, accused the ruling party of fraud and demanded a recount, it is unlikely that Maduro’s victory will be reversed. “We will know what to do if someone raises their insolent voice against the people,” the socialist warned on Sunday night.

Still, Maduro’s unexpectedly narrow win—opinion polls had predicted a landslide—casts doubt on the ruling party’s ability to hold onto power without its popular leader.

Chávez’ protégé lacks the charisma that enabled the deceased former president to win four consecutive elections and influence the politics of neighboring countries, including Bolivia and Ecuador where Presidents Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, respectively, imitated his populist left wing policies.

Risa Grais-Targow, an associate with the Eurasia Group consultancy, expects that Maduro, lacking a base of support of his own, “will struggle to manage internal disputes, especially as social discontent rises in a deteriorating economic environment.”

She writes at Quartz that the new president’s priority will likely be to reverse social discontent, “which means he is unlikely to make needed economic adjustments.”

Foreign exchange and price controls will remain in place. Maduro might pursue even more stringent state controls to “prove his revolutionary credentials,” like pushing an antitrust law through parliament.

The National Assembly is considering a law that would empower the government “to confiscate any business that it deems not acting in the public interest,” writes José R. Cárdenas at Foreign Policy. It would install a panel that decides whether a company has a “decisive domain” over the setting of prices or other market conditions in a particular industry, without stipulating what “decisive domain” means.

In other words, any successful company runs the risk of confiscation at any time by crossing the government’s arbitrary line of being “too successful.” And with the judicial sector also controlled by the government, private companies are left with no outlet to appeal adverse decisions.

Cárdenas predicts that the law will depress private sector production and further tilt the playing field in favor of state owned enterprises which are exempt from it.

Chávez hugely expanded the public sector and nationalized key industries, including oil. But lack of industrial development has forced Venezuela to import refined oil products even if it is the world’s tenth largest petroleum exporter.

The country has also had to cope with energy and food shortages as well as skyrocketing inflation that is projected to top 30 percent this year.

Market reforms are needed to revitalize Venezuela’s economy which the consultancy firm Ecoanalitica projects will expand less than 1 percent this year. Maduro, however, lacks the political credibility and quite probably the will to deviate from the party line and tamper with his predecessor’s legacy.

Significant changes in economic policy are unlikely in the short term even if more Venezuelans than preelection polls suggested apparently agree with Capriles that the current model is “not viable.”

To read this article at the Atlantic Sentinel, please click here.