Venezuela’s vote tally to be reviewed

CARACAS: The National Electoral Council in Venezuela has been asked to complete an audit of the electoral process after Sunday’s vote, said the head of the campaign for the National Constituent Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez.

The move came as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday swore in the 545-member assembly tasked to amend the constitution.

The swearing-in followed an election for the assembly on Sunday which was boycotted by opposition parties.

They claimed the president was trying to consolidate power.

Maduro called for a constituent assembly in May to amend the constitution in a bid to overcome a political crisis that has paralysed the country, but which seems to have deepened political divisions.

Rodriguez said the only valid results of the election were those provided by the National Electoral Council, which originally counted 8 089 320 votes.

Maduro said he had asked for the ballot count.

Earlier Antonio Mugica, the director of Smartmatic, a Venezuelan technological platform for voting, said it had detected “manipulation of the participation data” during the poll.

Mugica claimed to have identified “a difference between the announced figure and the number produced by the system (of) at least a million voters”.

Rodriguez said there could be strong pressure on Smartmatic company’s leadership by international powers, which had political and business interests in Venezuela.

“He is contradicting his own statements (on previous processes).

“Moreover, his company provides services which do not replace in any way Venezuela’s electoral power,” he said.

Rodriguez referred to inconsistencies in the “war of figures” between opposition leaders, whose data on a supposed electoral fraud contradict each other.

He said that despite violent actions promoted by sectors of the opposition on Sunday, the electoral event had been successful. teleSUR and Xinhua