3 Venezuela Opposition Parties Bow Out

Three Venezuelan opposition parties announced Tuesday that they were withdrawing all candidates from Sunday’s legislative elections, claiming procedural irregularities made a fair vote impossible.

Officials in President Hugo Chavez’s government, meanwhile, claimed that the parties were withdrawing in reaction to the dismal prospects they faced in the upcoming balloting.

Polls show that parties aligned with Chavez are likely to further strengthen their solid majority in Venezuela’s National Assembly.

“Very well, let them go to hell,” said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel.

“They say this process isn’t clean, but this is the cleanest in Venezuela’s history.”

“They’re withdrawing and calling fraud. What fraud? Accept the truth! ... It was them that betrayed the people’s hopes for so many years,” Chavez said at the signing of a trade accord with Italian officials Tuesday in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

The parties that are withdrawing are Democratic Action, the dominant political party before Chavez’s rise to power; Project Venezuela; and the Social Christian Party. Together, the three hold 36 seats in the 165-seat assembly.

Chavez loyalists control a majority of 86 seats.

The withdrawal underlines the deepening polarization in Venezuela’s political scene. Chavez has held power since early 1999, surviving a coup attempt in April 2002 and a referendum to remove him from office in August 2004.

Chavez, an ex-paratrooper, is due to stand for reelection late next year, and at this point he is the clear favorite. He has launched a host of social programs to benefit the poor, including cut-rate groceries, adult education and medical help.

But opponents claim that he has also slowly restructured Venezuela’s electoral, judicial and legislative institutions so he can bend them to his will. One such institution is the National Elections Council, or CNE, which is controlled by a pro-Chavez majority. The withdrawal of the three parties came after alleged irregularities were uncovered last week in a test of CNE voting machines.

The CNE announced Monday that it was withdrawing voting machines that verify voters’ identity through thumbprints, but that the elections would be held Sunday as scheduled with electronic balloting machines.

However, that did not satisfy the three withdrawing parties.

After the test, Democratic Action and the Social Christian Party requested a postponement of the vote until the ID machines could be reprogrammed. Project Venezuela founder Henrique Salas Romer said his party had asked that the machines be jettisoned altogether and that there be a return to manual balloting.

In a telephone interview, Salas Romer said the results had cast doubt on the integrity of the vote because they demonstrated that the secrecy of the ballots could not be guaranteed.

Maria Corina Machado of Sumate, a voting rights organization that has become a galvanizing force for Chavez opponents, said there had been an increasing “lack of transparency” in the electoral process since Chavez loyalists took control of the CNE.

The withdrawal of the parties probably enhances the Chavez faction’s chances of obtaining the two-thirds majority in the National Assembly it would need to pass a set of constitutional amendments, including one enabling Chavez to stay in power through 2021.

On Monday, Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono signed a deal to sell Chavez eight naval patrol boats and 12 maritime surveillance and transport airplanes despite protests from the U.S. government that the craft contain restricted American technology.

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Times special correspondent Stephen Ixer in Caracas contributed to this report.