MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela's Supreme Court refuses to review Maduro's victory

The Aug. 22 ruling of the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ was final, it was decided

The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on Friday declared “inadmissible” an appeal filed by former presidential candidate Enrique Márquez to review the National Electoral Council's (CNE) announcement that incumbent Nicolás Maduro Moros had won the July 28 election and would govern the South American country until 2031.

In Friday's ruling, the TSJ upheld the Electoral Chamber's Decision No. 31 of August 22, which validated the CNE's assessment of the will of the Venezuelan people in the July 28 elections. The Constitutional Chamber insisted that its electoral counterpart had conducted a thorough examination of all the necessary evidence “in an impeccable manner and with the necessary guarantees,” resulting in the issuance of a verdict “in accordance with the facts and the law, which in this case constitutes res judicata,” meaning that a final verdict has already been rendered. The TSJ also highlighted the alleged “impeccable integrity” with which the Bolivarian regime handled the electoral process. The panel of mostly Chavista judges insisted that Maduro's re-election had been “categorically” certified.

The opposition, various international election observers such as The Carter Center, and much of the international community believe that the July 28 elections were fraudulent and that retired diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia of the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD) should be recognized as president-elect instead of Maduro.

The TSJ also recalled that all of the CNE's materials proving this fact should remain in the court's custody. In other words, access to the records for each polling station would remain off-limits. However, PUD groups published copies of 83.5% of these records, which would confirm González Urrutia's victory, while Maduro's camp claimed they were forgeries, but never produced the hypothetical actual documents.

Márquez filed the appeal together with 20 Chavista dissidents citing Constitutional vices in the Electoral Chamber's ruling.