The Consejo Nacional Electoral reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Consejo Nacional Electoral

The Consejo Nacional Electoral ("National Electoral Council", or CNE) is the institution in charge of all electoral processes that take place in Venezuela.

Its five principal members are elected by a majority vote of the unicameral National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela) and all its rulings have to be agreed by a majority (three out of five) of these principal members.

At present the inclination of this institution is pro-government (pro-Chávez), particularly three of its principal members: Jorge Rodríguez, Oscar Battaglini, and Francisco Carrasquero. CNE's most recent decisions (March 2, 2004) have been controversial; they rejected 3.4 million signatures asking for a presidential recall referendum. The rejection was decided by Rodríguez, Battaglini, and Carrasquero; popular reaction to this decision resulted in nationwide demonstrations that led to nine deaths, 339 arrests, and 1,200 injured citizens.

International organizations present in Venezuela, such as the OAS and the Carter Center, have publicly expressed their doubts about the decision taken by the CNE in 2004. The Washington Post in an editorial compared the CNE decision to a "kafkian fraud".

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