May 17, 2005
The National Elections Council will have an extensive audit

(El Universal) -"After a meeting with representatives of 11 political parties, president of the National Elections Council, Jorge Rodríguez, said there was a common agreement to establish ways of citizen participation in order to counteract electoral abstention. He also said there will be a wide assessment of the electoral register (...)

The National Electoral Council offered to 'implement procedures that would promote participation of Venezuelans in electoral processes, as well as the necessary initiatives to make political party and electors participation as transparent and impartial as possible, as demanded by the National Constitution.

This first meeting with authorities of the National Elections Council was attended by representatives of the following political parties: Acción Democrática, Movimiento V República, Partido Comunista de Venezuela, Podemos, Movimiento al Socialismo, Copei, Proyecto Venezuela, Primero Justicia and Patria Para Todos, among others.

In a press conference after the meeting, Rodríguez said there will be another one in two weeks and expressed his wish to 'continue having these meetings' (...)

Jorge Rodríguez said political parties were given a final summary of postulations for the forthcoming municipal and local elections on August 7 th . They were also informed about the diagnosis that will be done by the Advisory and Electoral Promotion Centre of the Electoral Council.

'We all agreed on the fact that this audit has to be widely supervised by all political parties', Rodríguez said (...)".