Venezuela’s Supreme Court is on the verge of delivering a decisive ruling on the highly contentious presidential election, a decision that will be “final,” according to the court’s president, Carylsia Rodriguez. During a hearing on the July 28 vote, Rodriguez emphasized that 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.”
This statement comes at a time when the integrity of the election is under intense scrutiny. Many observers suggest that the Supreme Court has long been loyal to President Nicolas Maduro’s government, which claims to have secured a narrow victory in the election. The National Electoral Council (CNE) ratified Maduro’s win on August 2, asserting that he garnered 52 percent of the vote. However, the CNE has refused to disclose specific tallies from election sites, citing a massive hacking attempt that allegedly compromised the data.
Opposition leaders, however, dispute this outcome. They argue that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won the election by a significant margin. As proof, they have presented what they claim are official tallies from voting sites, which purportedly show Gonzalez Urrutia receiving 67 percent of the vote. These printed tallies, the opposition insists, reveal a stark contrast to the results reported by the government.
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Despite the opposition’s claims, Maduro has dismissed their allegations, characterizing them as baseless. On Friday, he stated that there had been “brutal” hacking, with “30 million attacks per minute on the electronic systems of the CNE and of Venezuela,” which justified the government’s refusal to release detailed election documents.
This has sparked violence across the nation, given this tense election year. Human rights organizations said the unrest has cost 24 lives in post-election protests. Maduro’s administration has also said that 2,200 people have been arrested following the election.
There has been controversy swirling around the high court behind most of its proceedings. The opposition candidate, Gonzalez Urrutia, has not answered to the court for fear of being detained. He has not resurfaced in more than a week, and Maria Corina Machado, an important opposition leader who also ran for the presidency, said she was taking refuge somewhere because of security concerns.
Maduro’s decision to involve the Supreme Court has been met with skepticism from opposition figures. Perkins Rocha, an opposition lawyer, suggested that by seeking the court’s validation, Maduro is implicitly admitting that “no one believes” the CNE. He further remarked, “no one believes the CNE, adding that “Maduro knows he can count on a court that kneels before him.”
