Venezuelan authorities receive Carter Center delegation

teleSUR English

*Venezuela, electoral campaign enter final stretch  *Defense Minister met with Carter Center representatives  *Electoral authorities reported that the elections timetable advances normally

Transcript

00:00We go now live to Caracas. Our special envoy, Yunus Soner, is at Fortuna, where defence

00:05authorities met with Carter Centre representatives. Hello Yunus, what is the latest from Venezuela?

00:14Hello from Caracas. Hello from the Hall of Fame, Hall of Honour, Simon Bolivar, here

00:20inside the Ministry of Defence. We are right now waiting for the representatives of the

00:27Carter Centre to come out from their meeting. Now, what happened? They were received by

00:32the Minister of Defence, Padrino Lopez. A delegation of eight persons came from the

00:38United States from the Carter Centre, headed by Jenny Lincoln, who is the head advisor

00:43for Latin America and the Caribbean. The Carter Centre is pretty important. We should remind

00:48our viewers that it has a long history of cooperating with Venezuela in terms of election

00:54observation and watching. It has been here during seven different elections since 1998

01:00and has written comprehensive reports about these. For instance, in 2006 the Centre confirmed

01:08in a public accessibility report how efficient and well-working the electronic voting system

01:15was, and in 2012 it has also confirmed increased citizen confidence into the electoral system.

01:23So this delegation is now also here again to observe the July 28 elections, and it is

01:30meeting with different political actors and different institutions, and today was received

01:34by the Minister of Defence, Padrino Lopez, who welcomed them wholeheartedly. He said

01:41we are very happy that you are here, and we do welcome all the delegations that are invited

01:46by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela, which is the only authority, which is the

01:52only institution authorised to invite foreign observers or watchers, better said. So Padrino

01:58Lopez gave a summary of the situation as he sees it. He spoke that he observes an enthusiastic,

02:07joyful atmosphere ahead of the elections. He said that the armed forces celebrate every

02:14time the elections come because it moves the country away from the violence, and in fact

02:18the Minister said he wished that there were more elections. The National Bolivarian Armed

02:25Forces play a crucial role in the elections, and this is within the plan of Republic, the

02:31plan which the Minister then explained to the representatives of the Carter Centre

02:37in detail. That plan foresees that the armed forces provide the security of election centres,

02:44of voters, and of the voting machines ahead and during and after the elections. So every

02:51voting centre is guarded by members of the armed forces, which will, as the Minister

02:57has announced, deploy thousands of soldiers officially starting from July 24th. But right

03:04now, for instance, in all the election stands where citizens are taught how action works,

03:09how the procedure works, you see also already present soldiers of the armed forces, of the

03:15National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela. So the meeting is still continuing. We are

03:20waiting for the Carter Centre delegation to come out and to hopefully hold a press declaration

03:26here, but right now we can state that the Minister of Defence of Venezuela welcomed

03:31the Carter delegation wholeheartedly, and they seem to be quite interested in inquiring

03:37more details about the election process.

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