Venezuela's Supreme Court President Carislya Beatriz RodrĂguez certifies the re-election of President Nicolas Maduro for a third six-year term on Thursday, August 22, 2024. Photo: Federico Parra/AFP.
The Electoral Chamber of Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) validated the results issued by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the presidential elections held on July 28. The decision is contained in a ruling that was read at the TSJ headquarters in Caracas in the presence of the diplomatic corps and Venezuelan officials.
The ruling was issued this Thursday, August 22, by Judge Carislya Beatriz RodrĂguez, president of the TSJ and the Electoral Chamber. The judge was accompanied by justices Fanny Márquez and Inocencio Figueroa. This ruling is the response to an electoral appeal filed by the administration of President Nicolás Maduro requesting that the Chamber “clarify everything that needed to be clarified” regarding the results of the Venezuelan presidential elections.
After an expert analysis of the evidence, the magistrates concluded that the bulletins issued by the CNE were supported by the voting records transmitted by each of the voting machines and are in full agreement with the data provided by the national aggregation centers.
“We certify, in an unobjectionable manner, the electoral material examined and validate the results issued by the CNE indicating that Nicolás Maduro Moros was elected,” states the official ruling.
The Electoral Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) issues a ruling in which it affirms that based on results obtained in the expert report, the results reported by the CNE are consistent with voting machine records. pic.twitter.com/WdETlOp9cr
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) August 22, 2024
In the ruling, the magistrates urged the CNE to publish the final results of the presidential elections. In addition, they forwarded the ruling to the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that, if it deems it necessary, this office may initiate the relevant criminal investigations related to common and electoral crimes detected during the process.
At one point in the ruling, the judges declared former presidential candidate Edmundo González in contempt because he ignored the summons issued by the Electoral Chamber to appear on Thursday, August 8, and submit the voting records that his party claimed were in their possession.
The litigation, step by step
• July 31, 2024: Following allegations of fraud by an opposition candidate (Edmundo González), President Nicolás Maduro went before the TSJ Electoral Chamber and filed an electoral contentious appeal for its judges to verify and authenticate the results of the elections held on July 28.
• August 1: The Electoral Chamber admits, addresses, and begins the verification process to certify the results of the electoral process of July 28. In that same act, the Chamber summoned the 10 presidential candidates. Nine of 10 presidential candidates presented themselves at the Electoral Chamber in response to the summons. Justice Carislya RodrĂguez read a commitment signed by eight of the nine candidates present. The document makes it clear that the former presidential candidates agreed to respect the final decision of the Electoral Chamber in relation to the presidential elections. Enrique Márquez did not sign, and Edmundo González did not respond to the TSJ summons. The Electoral Chamber issued a new ruling to summon the CNE and to submit all documentation from the electoral process, including the voting records.
• August 5: The CNE representatives went before the Electoral Chamber and submitted the official voting records, final totalization minutes, adjudication minutes, proclamation minutes, and evidence of the ongoing cyberattack.
• August 7-9. Nine of the ten former presidential candidates attended, as well as 38 representatives of the political parties that nominated them. The parties allied to Edmundo González, that is, Plataforma de la Unidad, Un Nuevo Tiempo, and Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, stated that they did not have any voting records or other documents from the elections. According to witnesses, their representative Manuel Rosales stated that “SĂşmate handled that,” before the three justices of the Electoral Chamber, according to witnesses [SĂşmate is an NGO founded by MarĂa Corina Machado and funded in part by the US National Endowment for Democracy].
• August 10: The Electoral Chamber held a meeting with the diplomatic corps accredited in Venezuela, before whom it read the provisions of a ruling that reviewed the process leading up to the elections. In this ruling, the justices noted former candidate Edmundo González’s failure to appear and labeled this as contempt of a court order.
• August 18: The three justices of the Electoral Chamber proceeded to the main headquarters of the CNE to carry out the validation of the physical voting records and compare them with those received at the CNE’s aggregation center on election day.
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Far-right response
Just minutes before the TSJ ruling was announced, the far-right Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado posted the following on social media: “Let them dare do it” [que le echen bola], a derogatory phrase that, in Venezuelan slang, is often used to threaten an individual. After the ruling was announced, Machado did not directly refer to it on her X account, although she reposted statements by other right-wing Latin American politicians.
For his part, on Thursday evening, former candidate Edmundo González, posted a video in which he claimed that no ruling could alter “what happened and could not be above the people’s sovereignty.”
“To judicialize the electoral results does not change the truth,” added González in the statement, “that we overwhelmingly won and we have the voting minutes that prove it.” Thus, González made it clear that he would not be willing to accept a the ultimate ruling of the TSJ. This was consistent with his behavior throughout the process: recall that González, along with one other former candidate, were the only candidates of the 10 presidential candidates who refused to sign an agreement to respect the results of the election.
González ended his short speech by ordering the CNE, once again, to publish the “voting records” polling station by polling station and demanding a full audit of the result with credible international observation, thus replicating the main talking points used by the US government and its allies.
On Wednesday, the Unitary Platform (PUD) issued public a statement where, by not recognizing the electoral results and attempting to repeat the failed GuaidĂł project, it seems it has chosen to replicate the same strategy that it followed in 2019.
The US-backed opposition led by González continues in its refusal to recognize President Maduro’s electoral victory and maintains that González was the winner of the elections. It continues to claim that he will assume the office of president of Venezuela on January 10, 2025. In a statement, it claimed that “The Electoral Chamber of the TSJ is not authorized under any circumstances to exercise these functions. If it did so, it would be violating the principle of separation of Public Powers, clearly established in substance and form in the Constitution. It would also be invading the exclusive duty of the CNE and trampling on the decision of the people expressed at the polls.” Nevertheless, Venezuela’s Constitution, like that of many other countries, clearly designates the Supreme Court as the correct entity to resolve electoral disputes.
(Ăšltimas Noticias) by Eligio Rojas with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
