No surprises. The Supreme Court of Venezuela (TSJ) on Thursday confirmed the victory of Nicolás Maduro in the elections of July 28 amid criticism of the lack of independence of the judicial body, controlled by Chavismo and turning a deaf ear to all calls from the international community for impartial verification. The president of the electoral chamber, Caryslia Rodríguez, former councilor of the PSUV, the ruling party, assured representatives of the public powers and the diplomatic corps that the sentence “closes the case.” Uncertainty, however, only grows in Venezuela amid fears that repression will grow.
The ruling consolidates the narrative that the government has developed since the early hours of July 29, when the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, proclaimed Maduro, of whom he is a personal friend, the winner of the elections without providing evidence. Meanwhile, the opposition collected more than 80% of the records that challenged the official thesis by showing a victory of Edmundo González with 67% of the votes, compared to 30% for Maduro. A few days later, the Venezuelan president went to the TSJ so that it was this body that would settle the controversy, despite the opposition’s insistence that it be the CNE. The international community demanded an impartial verification of the results.
Judge Rodríguez, in an event attended by Amoroso, admitted the theory of a “cyber attack on the CNE” that, according to the official version, occurred on election night and delayed the transmission of the results. This circumstance, she explained, makes possible “a request for judicial protection to certify the popular will.” Rodríguez argued that this type of dispute can be settled with the decision of the highest court in the country, and cited the recent cases of Brazil, in 2014, and the United States, in 2000, as an example. In addition, she congratulated the technicians who verified the minutes delivered by Maduro for their “professionalism and dedication” and announced that the electoral material consigned “is in the safekeeping of this court.”
Beyond validating the CNE result and consolidating the official narrative, the sentence delves into a series of points that predict that the political, social and institutional crisis in Venezuela will deepen in the coming days. The text read by the magistrate states that Edmundo González “disrespectfully ignored the call of this court” and added that she will send to the Prosecutor’s Office “criminal evidence regarding the process of fraud, promotion of anxiety, forgery of documents and usurpation of functions.”
This Thursday, before the Supreme Court issued its verdict, Edmundo González warned in a message on his social networks: “Gentlemen of the TSJ: no sentence will replace popular sovereignty. The country and the world know your partiality and, therefore, your inability to resolve the conflict; your decision will only aggravate the crisis. We Venezuelans are not willing to give up our freedom or our right to change in peace to live better.”
Even before the TSJ’s ruling, the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, was more direct and challenged the judges to dare to issue a ruling that validates the fraud, without showing the minutes that she claims to have in her hands: “TSJ: Pay attention to it,” she wrote on her social networks, a Venezuelan expression equivalent to “put your balls on it.”
Distrust
The proceedings before the Supreme Court have generated distrust both in Venezuela and in the international community, given the proven control that Maduro has over the entire institutional apparatus and his lack of independence. The United Nations recalled the report of the panel of experts that went to Venezuela during the election day and that has been one of the most decisive blows to Maduro’s credibility.
Criticism has also been levelled at the court’s usurpation of functions over the responsibilities of the Electoral Power, which, nearly a month after the elections, has not yet presented results broken down table by table nor provided information on subsequent audits that should have been carried out. The Judiciary reviewed documents submitted by the CNE and some political parties. Images of the process were broadcast through official media, in which a group of people wearing gloves, face masks and caps opened boxes of electoral documents and transcribed the information contained in them.
The “expert report” was carried out by members of the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America and the Observatory of Strategic Thought for Regional Integration, as well as a group of technicians and professors from the Universidad Simón Bolívar, invited by the vice president of the CNE, Carlos Quintero. They all acted under the supervision of magistrate Caryslia Rodríguez. The process included the summons of the 10 presidential candidates who competed on July 28 to appear. González Urrutia, opposition candidate and substitute for María Corina Machado after her disqualification, did not attend. The summons coincided with the threats of imprisonment made by Maduro himself and the Prosecutor’s Office.
“The Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice is not authorized under any circumstances to exercise the functions it is exercising,” González, Machado and the Unitary Platform stated in a statement in which they anticipated Thursday’s decision. “If it were to do so, it would be violating the principle of separation of public powers, as clearly established in form and substance in the National Constitution. The TSJ would be invading an exclusive duty of the Electoral Power and trampling on the decision of the people.”
Another candidate, Enrique Márquez, from moderate opposition sectors that include a dissident Chavista, asked the Electoral Chamber to order a vote-by-vote count of the July 28 elections and to declare the process initiated with Maduro null and void. He also requested the recusal of Caryslia Rodríguez for her confessed political ties with the ruling PSUV and with Maduro.
Reports by international observer missions from the Carter Center and the UN Panel of Experts have also cast a shadow over the results. Both organizations have asserted that the elections were not democratic, lacked basic measures of integrity and transparency, and cast doubt on the results of the CNE.
The opposition, as well as much of the international community, has insisted that it is the CNE that must provide answers about what happened. Brazil and Colombia have tried to mediate in the crisis by asking for an international and impartial verification of the records. A repeat of the elections has also been proposed, an idea rejected by Chavismo and the opposition. Stuck in unsuccessful negotiations, recently, the presidents of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said they would wait for the results of the review being carried out by the Supreme Court.
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América onFacebook andXor in ourweekly newsletter.
