Spain to send observers for Venezuelan poll: government

Spain announced Tuesday it will send an observer mission to this month’s legislative elections in Venezuela, two months after Caracas barred a Chilean team from observing the polls.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos made the announcement in the Senate, saying in response to a question that Spain has “managed to be allowed to have representatives at these elections” in Venezuela.

He gave no further details.

Moratinos vowed in July that Spain would do “everything possible” to ensure that a team of deputies and senators from Spain could travel to Venezuela to observe the September 26 vote.

That statement came days after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that a group of Chilean senators seeking to observe the elections would not be allowed into the country after they had questioned the transparency of the polls.

Venezuelans will vote to renew all 167 seats in the single-chamber National Assembly, which since 2005 has been dominated by Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela.