Preliminary OAS and EU reports are out

I have to admit that I did not expect the OAS and the EU observers preliminary reports to be so clearly against Chávez's regime [1]. Both reports criticize, in no uncertain terms, the mistrust of the population towards the electoral body, and the need to create a new electoral body that would eliminate this mistrust. But don't take my word for it, you can read both of them in Bureli's blog (sorry the OAS one is in spanish, but Daniel has analyzed some of it here).

I didn't expect that they would go into so much detail criticizing the Maisanta software, thus state repression, the 'Morochas' specifically saying that these clearly go against the spirit of the constitution, thus criticizing the Supreme Court in the process, and the use of state funds for political propaganda, thus denouncing government corruption. Not to mention saying, in no uncertain terms, that keeping the voting stations open after 4PM was plainly illegal, and coincided with an intensification of the, campaign to move people to the polling stations (with some illegal components to that too).

Of course, they have criticized some of the Opposition's actions, and have praised some of the CNE ones, and I am sure that the CPM™ talking points have been actualized to spin those any way they can (and you will see those ad infinitum soon in blog's comment sections), but the totality of the reports leave no doubt in how much of a mess is Venezuela's political system right now.

So, in short, the OAS and the EU have acknowledged most of what the Venezuelan opposition [2] has said about the CNE since the days of the RR, impressive indeed. No matter what is the outcome of all this, and there is clearly a long road ahead, but I have to say that this has been a great day for the Venezuelan opposition.

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1. Just in case, the electoral council or CNE is just one more of Chavez's institutions, thus criticizing them is to criticize the government.
2. I keep the convention started by Quico's blog of capitalizing Opposition to denote Opposition parties, and using lower-case to denote the generalized group of people that oppose Chávez's regime in any way.

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Update, here are the original reports: OAS, EU (PDF)