CNE of Venezuela invited the European Union and the UN as observers for the July presidential elections

The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela announced that it has completed invitations for different electoral observation missions for the presidential elections on July 28, among them, to the European Union (EU), “as long as they comply with the requirements” and the “constitutional and legal regulations” of the country.

These invitations have also been sent to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Bodies, the UN panel of experts, the African Union, the Cartes Center and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). , among others.
The president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, explained that, in this way, the electoral body accepts the proposals signed in the Barbados Agreement between the Government and the opposition, on October 17, 2023, the Caracas Agreement, on February 28 2024, which also includes the participation of observers.

The document of electoral guarantees signed in Barbados emphasizes that the observation missions must act “with strict adherence to the Constitution, the law and the agreements signed with the Electoral Power, without prejudice to the right of political actors to invite national and international companionswithin the framework of the law.”

Last July, the president of Parliament, the Chavista Jorge Rodríguez, said that “no electoral observation mission” from the EU returns to the country because “they are rude, because they are colonialists,” after the European Parliament condemned the “arbitrary and “unconstitutional” related to the disqualification of anti-Chavista politicians.

“No observation mission from Europe is going to come here as long as we are the representatives of the Venezuelan State,” Rodríguez said then.

But, later, he corrected himself, saying that there could be EU observation as long as there were no deputies among its members, considering that they politicize the process, and that it should be a purely technical mission.