In a long-awaited ruling, Venezuela’s Supreme Court, often accused of serving as a sort of rubber stamp and repression instrument for the regime, ruled that strongman Nicolás Maduro was the winner of last month’s presidential election.
The Supreme Court ruled that the evidence Maduro presented to the court confirmed the National Electoral Council’s ruling on election night that the strongman had been re-elected with nearly 52% of the vote.
The court “certifies in an indisputable manner the expert material presented and validates the results issued by the (electoral council) that establish that Nicolás Maduro has been elected,” said the president of the court, Caryslia Beatriz Rodríguez. “The CNE is urged to publish the final results in the Official Gazette.”
According to Rodriguez, the decision was made with the help of qualified national and international experts, but their identities were not disclosed.
In addition, Rodriguez announced that the court would “urgently” send the collected information against the Venezuelan opposition, accusing its members of sowing “fear” among the population by accusing Maduro of committing electoral fraud.
The ruling in favor of Maduro was widely expected by a large part of the Venezuelan population, given the lack of independence of the Supreme Court. The court has been repeatedly accused by multilateral organizations of acting more as an instrument of political persecution than as an independent body dedicated to the administration of justice.
Hours before the court’s ruling, the United Nations Human Rights Council, via its X account, again warned about the court’s lack of independence. It pointed to an earlier report by its independent international mission to Venezuela, which concluded that the court was part of the state’s repressive apparatus and that the government “improperly interferes in the court’s decisions through direct messages to judges and public statements by Maduro” and other senior members of his regime.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court made the ruling 22 days after Maduro requested a decision in the election dispute.
Opposition leaders said Maduro was not really fooling anyone by taking the matter to the government’s supreme court, describing the move as a ploy to validate the electoral tribunal’s ruling since the regime was unable to provide official vote counts. The counts, known as to actconfirmed that opposition leader Edmundo González was the winner of the July 28 elections.
The regime has so far failed to to act confirms Maduro’s victory, despite the many requests from the international community to do so. This is in contrast to the opposition, which has presented the counts from more than 80% of polling stations, showing that Gonzalez defeated Maduro by a margin of more than 2-1.
Gonzalez rejected the decision via his X account, questioning the legitimacy of the court.
“Sovereignty rests in an inalienable way with the people,” the opposition leader said. “The institutions of the state flow from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. They will not usurp the truth.”
