The Venezuelan government accepted on Wednesday the holding of a new auditing of the results of the recall referendum of Aug. 15, by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Carter Center (CC).  

"We are not the electoral authorities and don't have the final decision over the matter, but if it depended on us, the results could be analyzed as thoroughly as possible," said Venezuelan Vice President Jose Rangel.

OAS and CC backed the petition for the auditing because the opposition alliance Democratic Coordination refuses to accept the results of the referendum as announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

It is not clear yet what will be the auditing method to be applied, when differences appear between the criteria of CNE Vice President Ezequiel Zamora, on the one hand, and OAS and CC, on the other.

Initially, the auditing will be randomly made on 150 of the 12,358 voting centers of the country, with the physical votes being compared with the results of the scrutinized acts in the presence of observers and witnesses of the opposition and the pro-government forces.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2004)