Waging Peace: Venezuela

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Since Venezuela President Hugo Chávez's election in 1998 and re-elections in 2000 and 2006, his administration has been criticized by opposition groups for what they see as its increasingly undemocratic actions. Opposition groups organized general strikes and large street protests, some of which ended in violence, to call for Chávez's resignation and early elections. From 2002 to 2004, The Carter Center and the Organization of American States (OAS) worked with both sides and electoral authorities to resolve the political crisis, culminating in the first known vote on the question of recalling a president that was held on Aug. 15, 2004.  In 2005, the Center commissioned an analysis of Venezuela electoral laws from four international experts, in response to a request from the presidents of the National Electoral Council and the National Assembly.

In 2006, in response to an invitation from the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE), The Center organized a specialized, technical mission to observe the use of automated voting technology employed in the December 2006 presidential elections and made recommendations to improve their security.  In these elections, President Chávez was re-elected to a six-year term.  In May 2007, the Center co-sponsored a seminar on electoral reform with Ojo Electoral, the national observer organization.

The Carter Center maintained a consultant in Caracas since 2005 to follow developments, develop reports on electoral processes and laws, and support periodic visits of invited experts and Carter Center staff.

Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum

The Carter Center and International IDEA initiated a dialogue forum between the five Andean countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia) and the United States in 2010.  The purpose of the Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum, an 18-month series of dialogue sessions held in both the United States and the Andean region, was to:

• Identify a common agenda for the six countries,
• Address misperceptions and misunderstandings between countries,
• Propose innovative solutions to problematic issues, and
• Explore the possibility of bilateral dialogues between pairs of countries with tense relations within the forum.

Between February 2010 and June 2011, the members of the Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum met four times in Atlanta, Ga.; Lima, Peru; and Washington, D.C.

Read more about The Carter Center/International IDEA-sponsored Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum >

Read more about media dialogue sessions between Colombian, Venezuelan, and U.S. >

Election Monitoring

1998 Election
In 1998, growing concern about the economy and government corruption fueled citizens' discontent with four decades of dominance of two political parties, spawning a populist movement led by Chávez. With prospective major political change and a climate of uncertainty surrounding the elections, the CNE invited significant international observation for the first time since 1959, when democracy took hold.

The Carter Center's 43-person team was led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Bolivia President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, former Chile President Patricio Aylwin, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. The delegation noted the effectiveness of the country's new automated vote-count system, the first national electronic system in the world. Read full text >

Election Reports

View Carter Center election reports and statements for Venezuela >

Addressing Media Polarization

Since 2000, the chasm has deepened between those who support and those who reject President Hugo Chávez and his political-ideological project; the polarization is nurtured by a lack of open dialogue.  Instead of facilitating such dialogue, media professionals, who have also partitioned along the lines of pro- or anti-Chavez, often exacerbate the existing divide.

The Carter Center initiated the Strengthening Professional Journalism in Venezuela project in December 2008 to address the need for a less politicized media in the midst of Venezuela's polarized society. To reduce the confrontational and partisan tone in much of the nation's reporting, the Center provides technical support to reporters from both pro-government and opposition media outlets. The project encourages ethical, balanced, and accurate reporting. It also promotes dialogue and improved relations between media professionals from public and private organizations through public seminars involving renowned international journalists and senior Venezuelan journalists and editors.