Venezuela court says its ruling on presidential vote will be 'final'

 

The ruling that Venezuela's Supreme Court will deliver on the disputed presidential election will be "final," the body's president Carylsia Rodriguez said Saturday at a hearing on the July 28 vote.

The court "is continuing the assessment begun on August 5, 2024, with a view to producing the final ruling... Its decisions are final and binding," said Rodriguez.

Most observers say the high court is loyal to the government of Nicolas Maduro, which has claimed a narrow victory in the election.

Opposition leaders insist that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won overwhelmingly, and they have produced what they say are official tallies from voting sites as evidence.

Maduro himself summoned the high court on August 1 to "validate" a victory that opponents insist was fraudulent.

The court heard from all candidates, including Maduro, this week -- except for Gonzalez Urrutia, who has said he fears arrest.

He has made no public appearances in more than a week, while key opposition leader Maria Corina Machado -- a past presidential candidate who was banned from running this time -- has said she is living in hiding.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) ratified Maduro's victory on August 2, saying he had won 52 per cent of the vote, but it refused to release exact tallies from election sites, saying the data had been hacked.

The opposition, in contrast, published printed tallies -- their legitimacy denied by Maduro -- that they say show Gonzalez Urrutia receiving 67 per cent of the vote.

The opposition and many observers say the alleged hacking of the results is a government invention to keep from having to publish election documents.

Maduro on Friday rejected those accusations, saying there had been "brutal" hacking, with "30 million attacks per minute on the electronic systems of the CNE and of Venezuela."

Opposition lawyer Perkins Rocha said that by turning to the high court Maduro was effectively acknowledging that "no one believes" the CNE, adding that "Maduro knows he can count on a (court) that kneels before him."

Post-election protests have left 24 people dead, according to rights groups, and Maduro says 2,200 people have been arrested.

He has overseen a national collapse, including an 80 percent drop in the once-wealthy oil-rich country's GDP, amid domestic economic mismanagement and international sanctions.