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Carter defends Venezuela referendum

Venezuelan authorities will conduct a random audit of the recall referendum, former US president Jimmy Carter announced on Tuesday, adding that he had no reason to doubt the vote won by President Hugo Chavez.

Carter said he and the Organization of American States (OAS) had suggested the move in order to ease concerns voiced by the opposition.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said the electoral authorities agreed to conduct the random audit of 150 voting desks yesterday, monitored by officials of the government, the opposition and international observers.

"The results of this second audit should be sufficient to address the remaining concerns that have been expressed by the opposition," Carter said.

Opposition leaders have denounced as a "massive fraud" the official outcome of the referendum which has Chavez garnering 58 percent of the ballots. The opposition had pushed for the vote hoping it could revoke the president's mandate.

But Carter, who had already endorsed the outcome, reiterated on Tuesday he had "no reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process or the accuracy of the referendum itself."

Carter and other international election monitors pledged to go the extra mile to dispel opposition claims that the referendum was rigged, and to prevent further political upheaval.

Carter and Cesar Gaviria, the head of the OAS, have been working for two years to find a solution to the often bloody political crisis that has gripped Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporting nation. Carter and Gaviria on Monday endorsed results of Sunday's referendum, in which voters by almost 58 percent voted to keep the leftist firebrand in office.

Leaders of an opposition coalition immediately cried fraud and called for mass demonstrations. Gunmen fired on an opposition demonstration later Monday, injuring six people and mortally wounding a woman who died in a hospital on Tuesday. Dozens died in a failed coup against Chavez in April 2002, and in political riots over several years.

Not willing to simply pack up and go home after giving their blessing to how the referendum was handled, Carter and Gaviria decided they needed to stick around.

Yesterday, they and members of the OAS and the Carter Center staff were to watch, along with representatives of the opposition, as national election officials compare electronic and paper ballots.

The referendum was carried out on touch-screen voting machines, which produced a paper receipt of each vote, much like an ATM. Voters then deposited the receipts into a ballot box.

Amid charges that the electronic machines were rigged, the monitors will be checking the results from the machines against the paper ballots to make sure there are no major discrepancies.
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