National Electoral Council (CNE) launches training schemes for officials who will preside over the elections next November

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): The National Electoral Council (CNE) launched training schemes for officials who will preside over the elections next November, but came under pressure from two opposition parties.

The Social Christian party, Copei, called on the CNE to invite international observers to oversee the elections scheduled for November 23. Copei party president Luis Ignacio Planas said the CNE hadn't invited observers from abroad the last time elections were held. At the time, the official rationale was that there had not been time to invite observers, and the referendum on President Hugo Chavez' plan to reform the Constitution took place without them.

The vote last December 2 narrowly rejected the reform plan by a margin of roughly two percentage points. However, to this day, opposition activists suspect that the winning margin was larger than that, and they question why there was a nine-hour wait before the CNE announced the official results.

Planas was evidently intent on making sure that the CNE wouldn't overlook any such invitations next time around, now that he'd jogged the board's memory in plenty of time. He also expressed misgivings about the electoral register, saying he intended to raise these with the CNE.

Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) alleged that the CNE was already trying to "adopt" the controversial ban imposed by Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian against potential candidates for the state and municipal elections. UNT spokesman Vicente Bello warned that steps were afoot at the CNE to use the list to "impede" people from registering as candidates. Bello pointed out that the CNE had yet to issue a definitive ruling setting out its stance on Russian's ban.

Oscar Perez, also of Copei, noted that the CNE allowed him to stand for the regional elections in 2004, when he'd been elected to the Miranda state legislature.