US embassy cable - 04CARACAS2840

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