SUMATE PREPARES FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CARACAS 003171 SIPDIS SIPDIS HQ SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD DEPT PASS TO AID/OTI RPORTER E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2026 TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL VE SUBJECT: SUMATE PREPARES FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REF: A. CARACAS 2478 ¶B. CARACAS 2405 ¶C. CARACAS 1997 ¶D. CARACAS 0757 ¶E. CARACAS 0461 ¶F. CARACAS 0113 ¶G. CARACAS 0101 CARACAS 00003171 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Political Counselor Robert Downes, Reason 1.4 (d). ¶1. (C) Summary - Ambassador met October 10 with the subdued, but determined leadership of election NGO Sumate to discuss the upcoming December 3 presidential election. Despite the ongoing threat of political persecution, Sumate is teaming up with the opposition to mount an ambitious election observation and reporting plan. Sumate leaders said CNE's use of fingerprint (digital scanning) machines would likely discourage or intimidate many potential voters and could be decisive in ensuring a Chavez victory. They also expressed the fear that international electoral observation missions, absent well-led and vigorous efforts, may end up giving undue legitimacy to a flawed electoral process. Sumate's leaders criticized Rosales' Zulia-centric campaign organization, but noted that public opinion polls, due to the fear factor, are underestimating Rosales' true electoral strength. End Summary. Sumate Prepares for December -------------- ¶2. (C) The Ambassador, DCM, PolCouns and AID/OTI Director met October 10 with election NGO Sumate's Alejandro Plaz, Maria Corina Machado and Robert Abdul to review political events in Venezuela. Sumate's leadership was somewhat more subdued than in previous meetings, but expressed their determination to continue providing strong and effective monitoring of government activities related to the electoral system. The group had to cancel its planned August 2006 opposition primary after Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales emerged as the opposition's consensus candidate. Abdul noted that while the aborted primary was a "painful experience," the group concluded that it served as a successful tactic to facilitate opposition cohesion around a consensus candidate for the December presidential election. ¶3. (C) Plaz briefed on the group's ambitious training, observation, reporting and auditing activities for the upcoming presidential election. The group is training opposition party witnesses and NGO observers, including Sumate members, on effective techniques of election observation and monitoring. They said they plan to have someone trained by Sumate at each of the more than 33,000 voting stations (mesas). This includes a massive overlap of Sumate and opposition resources as fully half of the opposition observers will be Sumate members, according to Plaz. ¶4. (C) Sumate will also have a team outside of each voting station to monitor the number of voters entering and to conduct exit polls. This will feed into both Sumate' public reporting of the elections and its auditing of irregularities. The electoral NGO plans to have both an election and a press control center with a frequently updated webpage reporting results. Plaz noted that when they conducted a similar effort previously, the website was under almost constant hacking attacks. The group will also compile a report or audit of the election process with any detected irregularities or violations of laws or regulations. Rosales and Polls -------------- ¶5. (C) While the group highlighted organizational problems within the Rosales campaign, they admitted that the Zulia governor is gaining ground with a positive message to which Chavez has been forced to respond. Maria Corina Machado reiterated Sumate's long-standing belief that most polls understate opposition support due to fear of repercussions on the part of those being polled. She said that polls in the same way overstated Chavez' backing and argued that Rosales might have a chance to beat Chavez in a free and fair election. ¶6. (C) Sumate's leaders argued that election observation, particularly aimed at technical aspects of the election, CARACAS 00003171 002.2 OF 002 would be critical. They noted that the continued use of the fingerprinting (digital scanning) machines fundamentally violated the secrecy of the balloting process. It would likely fuel fears among those intimidated by possible government retaliation and thus would abet opposition abstentionism. Machado also noted that while Rosales was smart to work now to build support and defer discussions with the National Electoral Council (CNE),at some point he would have to address electoral conditions to win in December. (Note: Machado is repeating conventional wisdom in making this observation. For his part, Rosales is telling his supporters that the fingerprint machines "don't matter".) Captahuellas -------------- ¶7. (C) Machado stressed that many potential voters believe that the "captahuellas," or fingerprint machines, allow the government to track how people vote. She said there are various "antidotes" to prevent this from happening, but some in the opposition have been so successful in convincing people that the technology will identify how they voted that the only way to counteract the fear of captahuellas is to remove them from the process. The opposition pushed this issue in the National Assembly elections in 2005 and the CNE agreed to remove them from the process during those elections. While noting other sorts of government election manipulation (e.g. the deeply flawed electoral registry, voter migration and poll switching),Machado said it is the use or non-use of captahuellas that will possibly determine the outcome of the election, not voter preference. International Observers -------------- ¶8. (C) Machado and Plaz expressed concern about the role that international observers might play in the election. They said an intrusive, well-led, and active international observation presence could have a positive impact on the elections, particularly on voter confidence. However, they noted that the BRV had not implemented any of the substantive recommendations the EU and OAS' Election Observation Missions' (EOMs) had made in their reports on the December 2005 National Assembly elections. This raised the question of why the groups were returning if their observations had not been addressed. They feared that the EOMs might therefore just serve to validate the BRV's "invisible fraud". ¶9. (C) Machado said the EU's EOM advance team met with Sumate and five other NGOs. She noted that only Sumate criticized the CNE's electoral conditions as untenable. Plaz said the CNE's continued delay and stalling in first inviting the OAS and now negotiating terms for the OAS EOM would make it difficult for the OAS to launch a timely and effective mission. The foreign observers would have difficulty assessing the psychological intimidation that the BRV was using on voters, according to Machado. While the government sought to reduce abstentionism in the December 2005 National Assembly elections, this year abstentionism would hurt the opposition and as such the government would continue to use fear of retaliation as an election tactic. Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) While Sumate's leaders were somewhat more subdued than in previous meetings, they appeared determined to continue to monitor and expose the government's authoritarian practices. Nevertheless, the difficult maneuvering over the primaries, in which they were criticized both by the government and elements of the opposition, along with the charges of treason and other crimes still hanging over their heads, have battered and trouble Sumate. (Plaz confirmed that while nothing was happening at the moment regarding their criminal indictments, the government could activate them, including ordering their pretrial detention, in a matter of hours.) Despite its plight, Sumate is trying to move forward in cooperation with the Rosales camp with an ambitious and laudable program to monitor and expose BRV election manipulation efforts. BROWNFIELD