VENEZUELA: OPPOSITION FIGHTS BACK ON FRAUD

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 002840

SIPDIS


NSC FOR CBARTON
USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD
STATE PASS USAID FOR DCHA/OTI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2014
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM VE
SUBJECT: VENEZUELA: OPPOSITION FIGHTS BACK ON FRAUD

REF: A. CARACAS 2730


B. CARACAS 2817

C. CARACAS 2759

Classified By: Abelardo A. Arias, Political Counselor,
for Reasons 1.4(d).

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Summary
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1. (C) Opponents of President Hugo Chavez put forward their
preliminary findings of the investigation of alleged fraud
during the August 15 presidential recall referendum September

8. Lawyer Tulio Alvarez, presenting a 70-page preliminary
report, noted irregularities in all stages of the referendum
process and called for a legal challenge of the official
results. He gave the report to Coordinadora Democratica
Leader Enrique Mendoza, who publicly re-emerged September 7,
for use with the National Electoral Council (CNE). Harvard
professor Ricardo Hausmann, working with the NGO Sumate,
revealed statistical inconsistencies in the results that, in
his view, confirm the presence of fraud in the referendum
September 5. The GOV rejected the allegations, saying the
Coordinadora confused "speculation" with evidence, and
suggested that the opposition is living in a fantasy land.
The anti-fraud offensive has more political than legal value
given the GOV's firm control over the CNE, and for the moment
puts Chavez opponents on a more sure footing on the
allegations of GOV fraud, irregularities and bias. A U.S.
statistician and electoral expert would help us all evaluate
the Coordinadora's considerable effort to prove fraud.End
summary.

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Mendoza Back on the Scene
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2. (U) Opponents of President Hugo Chavez bolstered their
attacks against the government over alleged fraud in the
August 15 recall referendum beginning September 5. After
weeks of low visibility, Coordinadora Democratica leader and
Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza appeared on a taped
televised address September 7 in which he recounted the
history of the impediments the opposition faced in getting to
the referendum and described some early fraud theories (ref
a). Mendoza claimed the National Electoral Council (CNE) had
intentionally slowed down the voting system on referendum day
so as keep the number of votes low, which he said favored
Chavez. Mendoza said his presentation was the first report
of "substantiated hypotheses" that are coming to light. He
said there are other "traces of fraud," but cautioned that
the Coordinadora would not reveal everything it knew to
prevent the GOV from destroying evidence.

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Alvarez Alleges Institutional Fraud
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3. (U) Working on behalf of the Coordinadora, constitutional
lawyer Tulio Alvarez released on September 8 the preliminary
report of fraud allegations compiled by a multi-disciplinary
team of 40 experts in 14 fields (refs b and c). Alvarez
recounts the weakening of the CNE and Supreme Court by the
Chavez administration, the CNE's rejection of the first
petition signature drive results, and CNE's biased handling
of the second petition drive. The report is critical of the
Carter Center's handling of its observation mission during
the referendum and subsequent audit, calling the mission's
performance on the latter "insufficient, superficial, even
irresponsible."


4. (U) Alvarez asserts that the GOV issued identity cards
illegally to pad voter rolls. Alvarez charged that the
electoral registry increase of 1.8 million voters between
March and July 2004 was unprecedented. He alleged some
300,000 of these new voters are non-existent and indicative
of GOV manipulation. Alvarez contrasted the growth in the
electorate with population growth and the population of
localities. He said he had documented more than 100
municipalities, mostly in areas where manual vote counts were
used, where registered voters ranged from 80 to 150 percent
of the actual population.


5. (U) The Alvarez report includes information from logs of
CANTV, the privatized national telecommunications company
that operated the automated electoral system's network on
August 15. CANTV, Alvarez asserts, recorded two-way
transmissions between the voting machines and the CNE's main
server in Caracas, which he said implies the machines'
results could have been altered. He said the data
transmission -- both incoming and outgoing -- were notably
different, an oddity given the machines were transmitting
similar information. He also said the CANTV logs show
communication between the CNE and some voting machines as
early as 7 a.m. on election day, which is prohibited by law
until after polls close.


6. (U) Alvarez recommended that the Coordinadora: contest the
referendum results based on the manipulation of the electoral
registry, which if legally successful would nullify the
referendum results; and refuse to participate in future
elections utilizing the automated system until fundamental
changes are made. Alvarez also called on international
organizations to oversee an audit of Venezuela's national
identity card system, and suggested the application of the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act against Smartmatic (based in
Florida) and CANTV (whose controlling investor is Verizon).

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Hausmann Concludes There Must Be Fraud
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7. (U) Separately, Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann and MIT
Professor Roberto Rigobon (both Venezuelan citizens and
pro-opposition) analyzed the referendum results, crossing
them with data from two August 15 exit polls (that gave a
landslide win to the "Si") and the Reafirmazo signature drive
in November 2003. Hausmann, who presented the results at a
Sumate press conference, used statistical methods to conclude
that if the voting results were manipulated, it would have to
have been committed at level of the voting center, not at
each voting machine within a particular center. He also said
he found that the manipulation was not applied evenly to
every voting center. Such manipulation, he theorizes, could
only have been coordinated as a central point such as the
CNE's tallying room, which was closed to international
observers during all but the last moments of the election.
The study also claims the 150 machines audited by the Carter
Center and CNE on August 18 were not/not a random sample.
Hausmann said the 150 audited machines delivered 10 percent
more votes for the "Si" than the universal results, a result
that has a less-than-one-percent chance of occurring
randomly.

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GOV Calls It A Fantasy World
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8. (C) Samuel Moncada, member of the pro-Chavez campaign
committee Comando Maisanta, immediately rejected the Alvarez
report, calling it a re-hash of old news that confuses
speculation with evidence. He accused the opposition of
being against poor people voting in elections. Moncada
called the report's attack on the naturalization of
foreigners "deeply xenophobic." Vice President Jose Vicente
Rangel called the report "fiction" designed to cover the
Coordinadora's grand defeat. The opposition would have to
perform magic to justify its claims, he said, adding that the
Coordinadora had entered into a fantasy world. He argued
that there was no fraud on August 15 and those who allege it
have no sense. He called on the opposition be sincere,
serious, and capable of accepting their defeat.

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Comment
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9. (C) With the referendum already three weeks behind them,
the opposition is just now laying out its first coherent
allegations of fraud. There is no damning evidence, but
supposition and investigation results that put the
opposition's claims on more sure footing. Mendoza's message
sought to stir the spirits of disappointed Chavez opponents,
while Alvarez's report is more effective, raising significant
questions about the electoral registry and the data
transmission. Hausmann's approach is abstruse, but contains
conclusions that buttress the pervasive "there was fraud"

sentiment among Chavez opponents. We do not expect these
reports to overturn the referendum results or to receive a
fair hearing at the hands of the CNE or Venezuela's courts.
The reports are a serious repudiation of the automated voting
system, however, and set the stage for a fight over the
regional elections procedures.

Brownfield


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2004CARACA02840 - CONFIDENTIAL