Venezuela’s president has been accused of seeking to pull off a barefaced power grab after the country’s government-controlled supreme court endorsed his disputed claim to have won the presidential election.
Venezuela’s opposition has claimed Nicolás Maduro tried to steal the 28 July election and has produced compelling evidence that its candidate, Edmundo González, was the real winner. Even countries such as Brazil and Colombia, whose leftwing leaders have longstanding ties to Maduro’s Chavismo political movement, have refused to recognise his victory.
But on Thursday, Venezuela’s supreme court publicly certified Maduro’s supposed triumph, which would give the incumbent another six-year term. During a televised announcement, its president, Caryslia Beatriz Rodríguez Rodríguez, declared his re-election “indisputable” and called the court’s verdict “definitive”.
“Nothing will stop us in our sacred mission [of upholding the law],” Rodríguez, who is a member of Maduro’s ruling Socialist party (PSUV), said in her 30-minute declamation.
The decision, although foreseeable, prompted a flood of anger and criticism.
Juanita Goebertus, the director of Human Rights Watch in the Americas, called the ruling “a crude attempt to judicially cover up electoral fraud”.
“The court is not impartial or independent,” Goebertus added, calling on the international community to continue demanding a credible and impartial evaluation of voting data.
Andrés Izarra, a former Maduro minister who now lives in exile, denounced what he called “a coup”. “No country will accept this judgment. And nor will the Venezuelan people,” he said.
After the court’s decision was announced, Maduro’s ministers and allies lined up to be interviewed on state television to declare the election crisis over.
The attorney general, Tarek William Saab, hailed what he called “a sublime and historic” moment. The foreign minister, Yván Gil, claimed the ruling “closes a chapter in Venezuela’s 28 July electoral process” and showed that the country’s constitution had triumphed.
Maduro’s communications minister, Freddy Ñáñez, called the ruling a “happy ending” for Venezuelan men and women. “This will go down in history as an episode of the highest democratic order,” Ñáñez said, adding: “I feel very content and I am absolutely certain that this is the mood on the streets.”
But the move looks almost certain to further aggravate the South American country’s crisis, with some fearing the political standoff could lead to bloodshed or even conflict.
“Somehow I don’t think saying, ‘We won, just trust us’ is going to fix Maduro’s problem,” tweeted Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela specialist from the Arsht Latin America Center.
Maduro’s administration has cracked down hard on dissenters since his claim of victory sparked two days of protests involving many of the poor communities that for years were loyal to his movement and its founder, Hugo Chávez. More than 20 people have been killed and more than 1,500 arrested.
The human rights activist Gonzalo Himiob, whose group is documenting the roundup of government opponents, said most of those targeted were from working-class areas.
“The government is sending them a message: ‘If you didn’t vote for us, you are now an enemy – and we can do whatever we want to our ‘enemies’,” said Himiob, from the group Foro Penal.
