Chilean President Gabriel Boric was the first president to react on Thursday to the ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) that validated Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the July 28 elections. “The TSJ has just consolidated the fraud,” said Boric. He also accused Chavismo of leading “a dictatorship that is not left-wing.” Boric has spent weeks criticizing Maduro and defending the accusations of electoral fraud launched by the Venezuelan opposition. His voice is especially heard because he is a president who came to power under the wing of a new Latin American left, with leaders under 40 years old.
Boric posted a long text on his social media where he attacks a court ruling that he considers “loaded with infamy.” “There is no doubt that we are facing a dictatorship that falsifies elections, represses those who think differently and is indifferent to the largest exile in the world, only comparable to that of Syria as a result of a war (…) Chile does not recognize this false self-proclaimed victory of Maduro and company,” Boric wrote. And he called for the formation of a “continental left that is profoundly democratic and that respects human rights regardless of the color of those who violate them.”
Today, the Venezuelan Supreme Court has finally consolidated the fraud. The Maduro regime obviously welcomes with enthusiasm its sentence, which will be marked by infamy. There is no doubt that we are facing a dictatorship that falsifies elections, represses those who think differently and is indifferent to…
— Gabriel Boric Font (@GabrielBoric) August 22, 2024
Maduro’s electoral victory has so far been recognised only by countries allied to Maduro, such as Russia, Cuba and Nicaragua. The Supreme Court has validated the results without the Electoral Birth Council (CNE), also controlled by the government, having disclosed in all this time the documentation that supports it. Chavismo has turned a deaf ear to the international clamour for it to present the official documentation that would prove its victory at the polls. The Supreme Court’s decision is a slap in the face to the demands for transparency from the United States, the European Union, Brazil, Colombia and the UN, among others, as well as the opposition.
In recent days, Brazilian and Colombian diplomacy has continued its joint efforts to persuade Maduro to agree to negotiate a peaceful solution to a crisis that has already caused 27 deaths and led to the arrest of 2,400 people. The fact that the Supreme Court has endorsed a result based on minutes that only Chavismo has seen means that Maduro has doubled the bet. It is a resounding slap in the face to the efforts led by Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro. Neither Brazil nor Colombia have yet reacted to the Supreme Court ruling. Two former Colombian presidents, Iván Duque (2018-2022) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), did, and they agreed in their criticism. “It is a blow to the Venezuelan people,” Duque said. “The ruling is a farce. Colombia cannot and should not endorse it,” Santos warned.
From Uruguay, the foreign minister, Omar Paganini, has denounced that “the regime [venezolano] The Supreme Court is dedicated to ignoring all calls from the international community to verify the data in the records. The Supreme Court, it has said, “unquestionably proclaims Maduro’s victory without giving solid explanations in this regard.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council mission to Venezuela has joined in the criticism. It has accused the TSJ and the CNE of lacking impartiality and independence, as well as “having played a role within the State’s repressive machine.” The UN body has recalled that the president of the Supreme Court, Caryslia Rodríguez, is a member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and held elected office; while the head of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, was also a pro-government deputy and responsible last January for the disqualification of the opposition leader, María Corina Machado.
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