Only 9.21% of prisoners in Venezuela voted in the presidential elections

In the presidential elections of July 28 only 9.21% of prisoners in Venezuela was able to exercise his right to vote, said the NGO Venezuelan Prisons Observatory.

Figures provided by the Ministry for the Penitentiary Service indicate that of the more than 42,800 inmates with the right to vote, only 1,900 participated in the electoral process.

The director of the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, Humberto Prado, stated that this low participation reflects a serious lack of policies and mechanisms to guarantee the right to vote in detention centers.

«It is sad to see how the Venezuelan State violates the rights of people deprived of liberty. “There was no guarantee of the right to vote as a human right,” Prado stated in reference to the official statements after the elections.

Thousands without the possibility of voting

The Minister for the Penitentiary Service, Julio García Zerpa, reported that electoral centers were set up in some prison facilities. He assured that “We ensured that they had the identity card and the documents necessary to vote.”

However, the observatory highlights, this authorization only covered a small percentage of the inmate population, which left thousands of people without the possibility of participating in the democratic process.

The OVP warned on the lack of transparency in the planning of the elections for the incarcerated population, by denouncing that timely information was not provided regarding data updates or logistics to facilitate voting.

The report of OVP He also reported that decent conditions were not guaranteed in many of the detention centers, which suffer from high levels of overcrowding and structural deficiencies that affect the basic rights of prisoners.