Ecuador: Yasunidos charge petition results for referendum on oil drilling being manipulated

theguardian.com reported that Yasuni campaigners claim oil drilling petition results are being manipulated
Civil society groups say enough signatures have been gathered to force a referendum but authorities are interfering
Kevin Koenig, Ecuador programme director of Amazon Watch, said: “It is extremely troubling to see these kinds of irregularities so soon into the verification process. It calls into question whether the CNE can indeed be objective and non-partisan. The eyes of the world are watching – this is a critical moment for Ecuador’s democracy and the credibility of Correa’s administration.”The YASunidos now fear that the government is using technicalities to eliminate many of the signatures that an army of more than 1,000 volunteers collected from the internet, social media and public meetings. “It is very alarming, because missing or illegible IDs could cause the invalidation of hundreds of thousands of signatures. Also, the verification of signatures began without observers of the YASunidos alliance. This is a serious violation of the constitution and a fraud to the Ecuadorian citizens. We are outraged about the untransparent and undemocratic methods being used to avoid a national referendum against the government’s plans,” Koch said. Read Article

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