CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s Supreme Court has backed President Nicolás Maduro’s decision claims to have won last month’s presidential election and said vote tallies posted online showing he lost by a landslide were falsified.
The move is Maduro’s latest attempt to dampen international protests and criticism that erupted after a disputed July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader sought a third six-year term.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, center, is joined by Congressman Diosdado Cabello, second left, and first lady Cilia Flores during a pro-government rally, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
The Supreme Court is filled with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
His decision, read Thursday at an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, follows a request from Maduro to review vote totals showing he won by more than a million votes.
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal votes.
Thanks to a superb campaign on the ground on election day, opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of vote tallies from 80% of the country’s 30,000 polling stations, showing that the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won by a margin of more than 2 to 1.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, bottom right, waves a Venezuelan national flag, during a rally to protest official results that declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner of the July presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado reaches out to grab vote tally sheets during a protest rally against official results that declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner of the July presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
The official score sheets The ballots printed by each voting machine have a QR code that allows anyone to easily verify the results and are virtually impossible to reproduce.
“Trying to judicialize the results does not change the truth: we won by a wide margin and we have the voting results to prove it,” González said, standing in front of a Venezuelan flag, in a video posted on social media.
The Supreme Court’s decision to certify the results contradicts the findings of United Nations and Carter Center observers who both found the results announced by the authorities lacking credibility. The outside experts noted, in particular, that the authorities had not released detailed results for each of the country’s 30,000 polling stations, as they have done in almost all previous elections.
The government claimed – without evidence – that a foreign cyberattack by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the counting of votes on election night and the publication of disaggregated results.
More than 50 countries will go to the polls in 2024
González was the only one of the 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court audit, a fact highlighted by the judges, who in their decision accused him of trying to sow panic.
The former diplomat and his main supporter, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding after the election as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on protests that broke out spontaneously across the country to protest the results.
Many foreign governments, including the United States and several of Maduro’s allies, have called on authorities to release full details of the results.
Gabriel Boric, Chile’s leftist president and a leading critic of Maduro’s electoral strategy, blasted the Supreme Court’s certification.
“Today, the Venezuelan TSJ has finally consolidated the fraud,” he said on his X account, referring to the initials of the Supreme Court. “The Maduro regime obviously welcomes its decision with enthusiasm… There is no doubt that we are facing a dictatorship that falsifies elections.” ___
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