More than five statues of Hugo Chavez were torn down in Venezuela during protests against the proclamation of Nicolas Maduro as the winner of the July 28 elections. Most of those who tore down the monuments are among the more than 2,200 people arrested today. And, in addition, the government has already begun to build – in record time – new figures.
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And this is how Chavismo seems to continue acting, ignoring the discontent of Venezuelans, ignoring and forcibly imposing actions that are based on the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) which, without having jurisdiction, this week validated Maduro’s disputed victory announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
However, the voting records and documents certifying that the current president was re-elected with the 6,408,844 votes assigned to him, compared to the 5,326,104 obtained by the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, according to the CNE, have still not been presented.
“The Government is showing its most repressive and entrenched phase.
“He challenges the opposition and, worse, the people and popular sovereignty. He does this by ignoring votes and, on a daily basis, humiliating, imprisoning, mistreating and rebuilding statues of Chavez,” political scientist Carlos Zambrano told EL TIEMPO.
The parallel with the statues – Zambrano continues – shows that the path of authoritarianism and imposition is the one taken by the Government, “which is why it is difficult for the opposition to find incentives to remove Maduro from power.”
The region, the European Union and the United Nations distrust the TSJ and, in the absence of evidence, consider the ruling in favor of Maduro to be uncredible. The president of Mexico, Manuel Andrés López Obrador, who had declared himself expectant of the TSJ’s decision, continues to insist that without the minutes it is more difficult to recognize Maduro for the 2025-2031 period.
But, in addition to not showing the minutes, there were flaws in the Supreme Court’s procedure from the first day. To begin with, there was no partial process. Caryslia Rodríguez, president of the Supreme Court, is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and was acting mayor of Caracas. On the other hand, the content of the contentious appeal filed by Maduro was never known, nor was it known what material the court evaluated.
Therefore, “this sentence is null. That means that the sentence does not exist and if the sentence is null then there is no reason to comply with it,” Juan Carlos Apitz, dean of the Faculty of Legal Sciences at the Central University of Venezuela, told this newspaper.
Apitz also stressed that another flaw in the ruling is that the Supreme Court president had been challenged on Tuesday by former candidate Enrique Márquez, due to the judge’s lack of impartiality and independence and “if she is challenged, the TSJ law clearly states that the file is paralyzed while the challenge is decided.”
But none of this seems to matter to Chavismo, and on the other hand, María Corina Machado seems to be placing part of her strategy in the international community. On Friday, she thanked the “democratic world” for rejecting the actions of the justice system.
“At this point, no one believes the TSJ’s crude maneuver to hide the records that prove Edmundo González’s overwhelming victory. That is why, once again, the regime was wrong: what the TSJ ruled was its complicity with the CNE fraud.
“Far from closing the case, they have accelerated the process that isolates and sinks Maduro more every day. It was clear that they did not dare to give it a go and publish the minutes! We: focus on the goal, discipline and confidence. Every day we achieve one more objective (sic)”, Machado responded to the statement from Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, the United States and the European Union. Colombia and Brazil remain silent.
“Venezuela is exposing itself to unprecedented international isolation that only the CNE can prevent. The electoral records must be published after verification in the presence of observers and witnesses of the candidates.”
Gonzalez also asked the “nations of the world to remain in defense of democracy and continue to demand transparency in the actions of the State and respect for the election results.”
For the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, the creation of a “new Lima Group and a new Guaidó” is “unacceptable,” said Foreign Minister Yván Gil, rejecting calls from the international community.
“Venezuela demands absolute respect for its sovereignty and independence,” Gil said in a televised statement.
The complexity of this situation is that “Venezuela is exposed to an unprecedented international isolation that only the CNE can avoid. The electoral records must be published after verification with the presence of observers and witnesses of the candidates,” according to the former minister of Chavismo and now critic of the revolution, Alejandro Fleming.
This isolation is part not only of the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on the Venezuelan economy, but also of the breakdown of relations between Caracas and the democratic world, which has kept several embassies closed in the neighboring country.
For the moment, tensions in Caracas remain. The TSJ asked the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, to continue the investigations against the opposition and declared González in contempt.
But for Apitz, Gonzalez cannot be in contempt because the sentence is null. “They would have to declare 7,000,000 voters in contempt.”
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