CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s top court has backed President Nicolas Maduro’s claims that he won last month’s presidential election, saying vote tallies posted online showing he lost in a landslide were falsified.
The ruling is Maduro’s latest attempt to quell protests and international criticism that erupted after the disputed July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader sought a third six-year term.
The Supreme Court is packed with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
Its ruling, read Thursday at an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response to a request by Maduro to review the vote totals that he claimed — without evidence — were tainted by a foreign cyberattack staged by hackers from North Macedonia .
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.
Thanks to an amazing ground game on election day, opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of vote tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, showing opposition candidate Edmundo González winning by more than a 2-to-1 margin. The official tallies printed by each voting machine have a QR code that makes it easy for anyone to verify the results and are nearly impossible to replicate.
The Supreme Court’s ruling certifying the results contradicted the findings of UN and Carter Center experts invited to observe the election, both of whom determined that the results announced by the authorities lacked credibility. Specifically, the outside experts noted that the authorities did not publish a breakdown of the results for each of the 30,000 polling stations in the country, as they have done in almost all previous elections.
González was the only one of 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court review, a fact noted by the judges, who in their judgment accused him of trying to spread panic.
Many foreign governments, including the United States as well as several leftist allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release the full tally of the results.