OAS claims there was 'aberrant manipulation' in Venezuela's presidential elections

The Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) of the Organization of American States published a report regarding the presidential election in Venezuela in 2024, in which it claimed there was "aberrant manipulation" in the electoral process.

The report was published in a statement signed by the office of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. In the document, the office argued that the worst and most vile form of repression is to prevent people from finding solutions through elections.

"The obligation of every institution in Venezuela should be to ensure freedom, justice and transparency in the electoral process. The people should have the maximum guarantees of political freedom to be able to express themselves at the polls, and to protect the rights of citizens to be elected," said the office's statement.

Similarly, Almagro's office highlighted that throughout this electoral process, the Venezuelan regime applied repressive control complemented by actions aimed at completely distorting the outcome, "making that result susceptible to the most aberrant manipulation." 

"The same continues to this day. The Maduro regime mocked important actors in the international community during these years and once again went to an electoral process without guarantees, nor mechanisms and procedures to enforce those guarantees. The complete manual of the fraudulent handling of the electoral result was applied in Venezuela on Sunday night, in many cases in a very rudimentary manner," highlighted the document.

Likewise, it detailed that "there has been talk of auditing or recounting of minutes of an electoral material that has not had the least security and control conditions. Likewise, we must keep in mind that, regarding audits, the regime is at least 11 years behind, when it committed with UNASUR (in a meeting of April 18, 2013 in Lima) to make an audit of 100% of the minutes of the electoral process of April 14, 2013. It is obvious to say that it was never fulfilled. It is obvious that a new mockery would be inadmissible."

In that sense, the report explained that the Venezuelan opposition showed the records that indicated the winner was opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzales Urrutia, while the Venezuelan regime refuses to show the records with the results. 

"Which at this point would be laughable and pathetic if it were not tragic; in this context it is imperative to know about Maduro's acceptance of the results of the tally sheets held by the opposition and consequently accept his electoral defeat and open the way to the return to democracy in Venezuela. If not, it would be necessary to hold new elections, but in this case with the EOMs of the European Union and the OAS present and a new CNE to reduce the margin of institutional irregularity that plagued this process," it highlighted.

"The burden of injustices on the people of Venezuela continues, those people are victims once again of repression, undoubtedly the most relevant governmental characteristic, fruit of an inefficient management that has sown the most serious humanitarian and migratory crisis that the region has ever known," the OAS statement added.