ElUniversal.com

1 November 2006

Controls over political advertisement and propaganda will be reinforced in the last four weeks of the presidential election to be held in Venezuela next December 3rd.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) made a proposal to hire a private firm to keep surveillance on the TV and radio coverage of the presidential race. The Carter Center has joined this initiative by the Venezuelan Electoral Power and offered to provide both the means and staff -just like the organization did in 2004- to install an audiovisual media observatory that is to assess both compliance with the Rules on Advertising and Propaganda and the balance of information in local media.

The CNE directors have not commented on The Carter Center proposal, even though they formally invited the group as observer of the presidential election.