THE WILL OF THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE AT TODAY’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MUST BE RESPECTED

Today, following the sad death of Hugo Chavez from cancer, Venezuelans will be voting to elect their next President.This will be Venezuela’s 17th national electoral process since 1998, when Hugo Chavez was first elected to the presidency. That is more elections than were held in the previous 40 years in Venezuela and more elections than nearly any other country in the world in that period.

All have been certified as free and fair by respected international bodies with former US President, Jimmy Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on democracy promotion, last year stating that “of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

In these elections, time and time again the majority of Venezuelans cast their vote for Hugo Chavez and his coalition of supporters, who won all but one of these contests. Most recently President Chavez was re-elected last October in a landslide victory with a record 8.6 million votes whilst last December pro-Chavez candidates won in 20 of 23 governorship elections and 22 out of 23 local legislative assemblies.

This expansion of democratic participation, and the regular endorsement of the Chavez government’s policies, was closely linked to the transformation of the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans through social programmes that have delivered free healthcare for millions, eradicated illiteracy and lifted millions out of poverty.

At April’s election, seven candidates will stand for the Presidency with the front runners being Nicolas Maduro, a Vice President under Hugo Chavez, and Henrique Capriles Radonski, the candidate of the right-wing M.U.D coalition who stood and lost at last year’s Presidential election.

We believe it is for the Venezuelan people alone to decide their next president. Yet in the past Venezuela has been subject to external intervention in its politics seeking to overturn and undermine the democratic will. The US backed coup in April 2002 that temporarily ousted the Hugo Chávez government and closed down all democratic institutions was followed by millions of dollars of US government funding to Venezuela's right-wing opposition movements allocated through the National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute and USAID.

Concerns have been expressed that given the likelihood of a victory for Nicolas Maduro, some sections of the right-wing opposition movements may not recognise the outcome of the forthcoming election, instead engaging in boycott or non-recognition of the results in an orchestrated attempt to discredit the outcome and to isolate Venezuela internationally.

But it is for the Venezuelan people alone to choose their next government, free from any external intervention and that governments around the world should respect the official results.