MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela's Supreme Court upholds Machado's electoral ban

With Friday's ruling, “the regime decided to end the Barbados Agreement,” Machado argued on X

Venezuela's Supreme Court (TSJ) Friday upheld a decision by the Comptroller General's Office whereby opposition leader María Corina Machado may not run in this year's elections after having been disenfranchised despite garnering 92.35% of the votes in the Oct. 22 primaries. The TSJ also confirmed Friday the disqualification of two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles.

Former Congresswoman “MARÍA CORINA MACHADO PARISCA is banned from exercising public functions for a period of fifteen (15) years, according to Resolution number 01-00-000285, dated September 16, 2021, issued by the COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC,” the court said in its ruling.

“The regime decided to end the Barbados Agreement,“ Machado wrote on X after the court's decision was made public. ”What is NOT ending is our fight to conquer democracy through free and fair elections,“ she added.

President Nicolás ”Maduro and his criminal system chose the worst path for them: fraudulent elections. That's not gonna happen. Let no one doubt it, this is UNTIL THE END,” she went on. Machado also insisted that her disenfranchisement was illegal.

Friday's decision from the Supreme Court's Political-Administrative Bench came amid mounting accusations by the Public Prosecutor's Office against activists and opponents, who have been arrested and charged with plotting to murder Maduro and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, among other high-ranking officials.

The ruling noted that Machado had been disenfranchised for having “been a participant in the corruption plot orchestrated” by former Parliament Speaker Juán Guaidó, as well as for failing to comply with Venezuelan regulations by accepting an “accreditation as an alternate representative” of Panama before the Organization of the American States (OAS), in a debate held in 2014.

The “usurper” Guaidó “propitiated the criminal blockade of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the shameless plundering of the companies and wealth of the Venezuelan people abroad, with the complicity of corrupt governments,” the court's ruling read according to local media.

Machado's lawyer Perkins Rocha also said on social media that he had been denied access to the court's docket to review the ruling's rationale, which rendered his client defenseless.

“What they will never be able to disqualify is the feeling of change of Venezuelans. The dream of having a country where the Constitution and the laws are equal and respected by all. Where the Government takes care of giving welfare and quality of life to the people. Where reaching old age is a reward and not a punishment. A Venezuela for all, democratic, where all Venezuelans have opportunities, prosperity, where nobody leaves and those who left can return because their country is a land of well-being,” Capriles said on social networks.

He also encouraged his fellow Venezuelans to ”let nothing and nobody (take) them out of the electoral route, of the exercise of the right to vote.“

”I will always be on the side of the most vulnerable and of the solutions, 2024 has to be the year of the Venezuelan people. This country will always be worth it,” he added.