Former Venezuelan presidential candidate and head of the Un Nuevo Tiempo political party, Manuel Rosales, presents himself before the Venezuelan Supreme Court on Wednesday, August 7, 2024. Photo: Prensa Latina.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—The former Venezuelan far-right presidential candidate, Edmundo González, has made attempts to justify his failure to appear before the authorities of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), where he was due to appear to submit all legally relevant electoral records that are in the possession of candidates’ political parties related to the presidential election process of July 28.
This Tuesday, August 6, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice and president of the Electoral Chamber of the highest court, Caryslia Rodríguez, iterated summons to the ten candidates who participated in the presidential elections.
Ante la pretendida citación a la Sala Electoral del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia pic.twitter.com/43Q2GfjrKG
— Edmundo González (@EdmundoGU) August 7, 2024
González published a letter—this time without signing off as president-elect, as has been his arrogant mode of operation—claiming that, in his opinion, the Supreme Court is usurping the role of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which, according to him, has not complied with presenting the results of the elections and “publishing” the voting records.
In reality, the CNE has already announced the results of the elections, and according to Venezuelan electoral laws, there is no mandate to publish electoral records. Traditionally, a few hours after a regular election, the CNE makes the results available via its website. However, during this electoral process, a cyberattack occurred and was condemned by the CNE, delaying the results, and the voting records themselves were submitted last Tuesday by the CNE to the TSJ.
Manuel Rosales
Former candidates Manuel Rosales (Un Nuevo Tiempo), José Luis Cartaya (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática), and José Simón Calzadilla (Movimiento Por Venezuela) did not submit the voting records in their possession to the Supreme Court of Justice on Wednesday. The three far-right politicians did comply with the TSJ summons, but did not deliver any voting records.
Venezuela: Supreme Court Summons Former Candidates and Political Parties
Manuel Rosales, head of the opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo, offered statements to the press in which he claimed that those voting records—which, according to them, prove their allegations of fraud—are being published and displayed on their own website. However, the information detailed on this website has been proven inaccurate and partial, only reflecting a fraction of the over 30,000 polling stations utilized during the presidential elections.
“We are members of the Electoral Platform and the Comando Con Venezuela, and we published a copy of the minutes that we have on a website. We did not have to present anything here, we already did that through our platform,” he told the media upon leaving the TSJ, in a move that some analysts consider to be contempt of court.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
OT/JRE/AU
