CARACAS/LONDON (Reuters) - Venezuela's president rejected accusations on
Wednesday that his government inflated turnout figures from its constituent
assembly
election, branding them part of an effort to stain what he called a
clean and transparent vote.
The company that provides the country's voting machines said that the
government's claim that 8.1 million votes were cast in Sunday's poll
overestimated the tally by least 1 million.
President Nicolas Maduro also criticized the accuracy of a story reported
by Reuters that only 3.7 million people had voted by 5:30 p.m. on Sunday,
according to internal electoral council documents, compared with the total 8.1
million ballots counted by authorities.
The documents, which break the data down into Venezuela's 14,515 polling
centers, show that 3,720,465 people had voted by 5.30 p.m. Voting ended at 7
p.m. and election experts said doubling the vote in the last hour and a half
would be unlikely.
"We stand by our story," Reuters global communications chief
Abbe Serphos said in an email.
Maduro was defiant.
"This election cannot be stained by anyone, because it was a
transparent vote, audited before, during and after the ballots were cast,"
he told a televised gathering of supporters.
Electronic voting technology firm Smartmatic, which created the voting
system that Venezuela has used since 2004, said the turnout figures had been
tampered with.
"We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election
for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated," said Smartmatic
Chief Executive Antonio Mugica in a press briefing in London, without providing
details of the company's methodology.
"We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the
one announced by authorities is at least 1 million votes," he said.
The opposition, which boycotted the vote, has dismissed the official
tally as fraudulent. A high turnout was seen as crucial for leftist Maduro to
legitimize the election in the face of wide international criticism.
The assembly will have the power to dissolve the opposition-run congress
and is expected to sack the country's chief prosecutor, who has harshly
criticized Maduro this year.
Maduro on Wednesday said the newly-minted superbody will also have the
power to strip members of congress of their immunity from prosecution. On
Tuesday security forces jailed two of Maduro's leading critics in a fresh blow
to the opposition.
Countries around the world have condemned the assembly as a bid to
indefinitely extend Maduro's rule. He is widely criticized for an economic
crisis marked by triple-digit inflation and chronic shortages of food and
medicine.
Oil Workers March
Maduro says the assembly is necessary to give him the powers needed to
bring peace to the country after more than four months of opposition protests
punctuated by violent clashes between security forces and hooded demonstrators.
More than 120 people have been killed since the unrest began in April.
Slideshow (8 Images)
Maduro said delegates of the 545-member assembly will have their first
official session on Friday. The opposition called for a new round of protests
on Thursday.
Congress has promised to continue holding sessions despite the election
of the new assembly. Last month it also named alternate justices to the Supreme
Court in defiance of the top court, which has heavily favored Maduro.
Authorities arrested three of those justices, and four others have taken
refuge in the residence of the Chilean ambassador in Caracas.
The United States this week called Maduro a dictator, froze his U.S.
assets, and barred Americans from doing business with him. Maduro, like his
predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chavez, regularly laughs off criticism
from Washington even though the United States is Venezuela's top crude
importer.
The European Union said it was mulling a "whole range of
actions" on Venezuela. But Maduro continues to enjoy public backing from
the Venezuela's military, though soldiers are increasingly weary of the popular
backlash against their role in quelling protests.
Oil workers, whom Maduro considers a bedrock of support, rallied in
several energy producing regions of the country on Wednesday.
Chanting and carrying the red Socialist Party flag, they denounced
sanctions on the leftist president.
"We are here to show our rejection of the intervention of the United
States," one demonstrator said during a televised rally, calling the
sanctions "a political show with harmful economic consequences for the
people of Venezuela."
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