24. Pursuant to the jurisprudence of the Court, the declarations rendered by the alleged victims cannot be assessed in isolation but rather together with the body of evidence in the proceeding, given that they are useful in the sense that they can offer more information on the alleged violations and their consequences.17 Based on the aforementioned, the Court admits said statements, (supra para. 17(a)), without failing to consider that the evidence be assessed under the mentioned criteria (supra para. 15 and 23). V PROVEN FACTS A. Prior considerations regarding facts not included in the application 1. Arguments of the parties 25. The representatives of the alleged victim argued that in relation to the various domestic instruments to prosecute corruption "there exists a selective State policy regarding its application" and "instruments of political persecution" that “deprive one [of rights] who acts as a dissident against the government and has clear aspirations and a high probability of winning the election." In this way, for the representatives, the administrative investigations against Mr. López Mendoza were initiated "during an election campaign for mayor." Moreover, they cited a report from the Inter-American Commission regarding Venezuela from 2009, wherein it indicated that: [it] ha[d] received allegations stating that mechanisms have been created in Venezuela to limit the chances that opposition candidates who are government dissidents have to hold power. Specifically, in the most recent regional elections held in Venezuela in November 2008, the Commission received information, through both its hearings and in the individual cases presented to it, indicating that around 400 persons had their political rights restricted through administrative resolutions taken by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic based on Article 105 of the Organic Law […]. The information reported was that the Comptroller of the Republic had decided to disqualify these persons from running for public office on the grounds that they had engaged in irregularities in the exercise of their time in public office. The information received by the Commission shows that a great majority of the disqualified persons belonged to the political opposition. 18 26. On its behalf, the State noted that “there is no political persecution," but that "each time a public employee is sanctioned from a political party of the opposition for administrative reasons, one immediately [concludes] that it is political persecution." It added that the sanctions "have been applied to public officials [...] of every political party because the idea is precisely that—to combat corruption." 17 Cf. Case of Loayza TaMayo. Merits. Judgment of September 17th of 1997. Series C No. 33, para. 43; Case of Vera Vera y otra, supra note 13, para. 23, and Case of Chocrón, supra note 13, para. 34 18 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report “Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela,” of December 2009. Available at: www.cidh.org/countryrep/Venezuela2009sp/VE09.indice.sp.htm (last visited on September 1, 2011). 13