Venezuela election: Edmundo González says Supreme Court cannot perform the functions of the National Electoral Council

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia issued a statement on Wednesday, warning that the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) cannot assume functions that correspond to the National Electoral Council (CNE). The statement comes as the TSJ — which is controlled by the ruling party — carries out an audit of the controversial results of the July 28 presidential election, which the CNE claims was won by President Nicolás Maduro.

The TSJ is reviewing the voter tally sheets, but has not released them to the public. The opposition has accused the government of voter fraud, claiming it is refusing to recognize González Urrutia’s victory.

“The National Electoral Council must enforce what the people have called for, and comply with and enforce the Constitution and the laws,” said González Urrutia. “The people’s decision cannot be ignored by any person, no matter what position of power they hold, nor by any organ of public power, and much less by those who seek to cling to power.”

“The Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice is not authorized under any circumstances to exercise the functions it is exercising,” his statement continued. “If it were to do so, it would be violating the principle of separation of public powers, as clearly established in form and substance in the National Constitution. The TSJ would be invading an exclusive duty of the Electoral Power and trampling on the decision of the people.”

Once the National Electoral Council declared Nicolás Maduro the winner on the night of July 28, the body reported that its systems had been hacked, and subsequently closed its doors, without offering any report of the voting records to the participating candidates, nor detailed information on the results at each polling station, as is the custom. Since then, the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso — a close friend of Maduro — and the rest of the electoral council have remained silent.

When the opposition challenged the TSJ’s announcement, they also published a comprehensive inventory of the tally sheets that they had obtained thanks to observers and anonymous collaborators who carried out a rigorous investigation the very same night of the election. Opposition leader María Corina Machado invited the public to scrutinize the digitalized tally sheets, which were posted on the website, circumventing the CNE’s lack of transparency. According to the tally sheets, González Urrutia won a crushing victory: 67% versus 30% for Maduro.

The announcement sparked widespread protests, with nine statues of Hugo Chávez were torn down on his birthday. The Maduro government responded by violently repressing the protests, while denouncing “a new conspiracy of fascism.”

Many election observers have been prosecuted and accused of being part of this conspiracy. Chavista leader Jorge Rodríguez said that the voter tallies the opposition has presented have been falsified.

Amid the controversy, Maduro announced that he had all the tally sheets, and asked the TSJ, “as the highest court in the Republic,” to settle the dispute over the results. These alleged tally sheets — which have not been shown to the public — are now being reviewed by the TSJ.

The president of the TSJ, Caryslia Rodríguez, accepted the case, and promised to provide a detailed examination of each tally sheet, in order to verify its veracity and officially legitimize the winner. The state-owned channel Venezolana de Televisión offers periodic reports on the counting and verification work of the technicians.

Opposition technicians argue that voting records are very complex difficult to hack — they have electronic signatures, a specific paper and a QR code — and that it would be very easy to verify whether or not they are authentic. “There are people who say that they [the Chavistas] are working to show some records,” said María Corina Machado at an opposition rally in Caracas. “I hope they do it. It would be public proof of fraud. I am waiting for them: publish your records.”

Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Centrados party, Enrique Márquez, has requested that Caryslia Rodríguez, the president of the Supreme Court, be recused from the case, arguing “she has not hidden, either in the past or in the present, her political ties with the ruling party. A judge cannot dispense justice if they are not impartial.”

Layoffs of public employees

In some sectors of the Venezuelan state — for example, the state-owned Venezolana de Televisión — there are reports of politically motivated mass layoffs, as the top management became aware of the political positions of many workers who believe the allegations of electoral fraud.

In response, María Corina Machado on Wednesday shared a recorded message, urging state employees to support the opposition’s call for change. “The regime has always treated public employees in a despotic way: it forces you to wear red [...] it pressures you, it threatens you, it checks your phone. That is aberrant, it is humiliating. You are trying to terrorize public employees. You are the majority, and the hierarchs of the regime, are a minority. You also want this change, as much as I do,” she told them.

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