The CNE is NOT preventing the President from using the public airwaves to make announcements about his campaign!

VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Opposition parties have accused the Chavez government of using governmental power and Venezuelan citizens' money to promote the Presidential referendum YES campaign and complain that the (supposedly autonomous) National Electoral Commission (CNE) remains silent on the subject.

Primero Justicia (First Justice-PJ) secretary Tomas Guanipa, claims that the electoral body has NOT issued any official condemnation of how President Chavez has used mandatory national TV and radio broadcasts to talk about his indefinite re-election campaign. "We wonder where the CNE is while the President uses all broadcast channels to broadcast a sports event that is part of his YES campaign? Where is the CNE when the government plagiarizes the NO campaign's propaganda and they allow it to continue broadcasting?"

Where is the CNE when there is YES propaganda in the music played in subway
stations?

The CNE is NOT preventing the President from using the public airwaves to
make announcements about his campaign!

Guanipa says the government may be able to censor the opposition and to prevent it from promulgating its message in the media "but they won't be able to censor our consciousness ... they won't be able to censor our will ... they won't be able to censor the fact that we, Venezuelans, have no fear of voting because we know that voting is our only weapon to destroy those who will not respect the popular will of the Venezuelan people."

Given this, Guanipa has asked all Venezuelans to go massively to vote on February 15: "Given the manipulation and disinformation, we can only respond by expressing our democratic will with energy, strength and love for Venezuela.

Guanipa adds that Venezuelans are themselves witnesses of the "abuse" of power by the government ... "if the re-election amendment is approved, the situation will worsen for future electoral events. Can you imagine how they will use the resources, power and all their threats to impose themselves in the elections ... the ball is now firmly in the hands of the Venezuelan electorate."

PJ's Luis Ignacio Planas says that political parties and other democratic organizations have done their part to inform the people against the amendment by knocking on doors ... "It is now the turn of Venezuelans to go out and vote!" He saus that despite attempts to stop the NO campaign, the attachment of the Venezuelan people to democratic values planted so many years ago in our country is now again taking control over our destiny."

He points out that, far from discouraging voters, critique directed at the CNE for NOT taking action against the governmental exploitation of "advantage-ism, shows what is happening at the CNE and that is why we ask everyone to go out and vote on February 15 to defeat the President's intent to get approval for his unlimited re-election!"

VHeadline Venezuela News
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