Supreme Court of Venezuela annulled the opposition primaries won by María Corina Machado

2023-10-30 22:07:14

The supreme court of Venezuela suspended this Monday “all effects” of the opposition primaries, in the midst of a judicial siege against this process that was held shortly after the United States relaxed sanctions against the country in exchange for electoral conditions.

The internal elections to elect the rival of President Nicolás Maduro in the 2024 elections were held in a self-managed manner on October 22 and had a surprising participation of 2.4 million people and a sweeping victory for the disqualified liberal María Corina Machado, with 92 % of the votes.

Maduro, his party and the rest of the authorities maintained that the opposition inflated the numbers and were unaware of the process.

The Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), with a pro-government line, admitted an appeal for protection against the primary filed by the dissident opponent José Brito, a member of Parliament and branded as a collaborationist.

“All the effects of the different phases of the electoral process conducted by the ‘national primary commission’ are suspended,” stated the ruling published on the website of the country’s highest court.

“How can you suspend something whose effects have already been verified?” Ali Daniels, coordinator of the NGO Access to Justice, told AFP. “The main and only objective was to choose a candidate who represents a set of parties. “That already happened.”

“Nicaraguaize” Venezuela

At the same time, prosecutor Tarek William Saab opened an investigation for the alleged commission of crimes of usurpation of electoral and identity functions, as well as money laundering and criminal association.

And this Monday he summoned Jesús María Casal, president of the National Primary Commission (CNP) and other members of his team to testify.

The internal elections were held five days after the government and the opposition agreed to respect the primaries at a dialogue table, where it was also decided to hold the presidential elections in the second half of 2024 with observation by the European Union and other international actors.

The United States, in response, eased the oil embargo imposed on the country in 2019 for six months, but conditioned it on enabling opponents like Machado, something that Chavismo, at least in its speech, has ruled out.

In fact, in its ruling, the TSJ refers to Machado as “a citizen firmly disqualified for 15 years,” reaffirming a sanction imposed in June for alleged corruption and promoting sanctions.

Luis Vicente León, political analyst and director of the Datanalisis firm, ruled out a return to the partial lifting of the embargo in a global context of energy crisis.

“There may be punishments, redesign of the United States strategy to continue putting pressure on Maduro,” he said.

“The dilemma today is licenses or elections” because “if you move the licensing process too much you can lead to a process of ‘Nicaraguaization’ of the Venezuelan process,” he said, referring to Daniel Ortega’s manual of imprisoning and exiling his electoral opponents.

Primary to measure?

The primary did not have the assistance of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which, after months of evasions, finally proposed at the last minute to postpone the event for a month to be able to organize them but without guarantees of being able to register disqualified candidates, a condition of the opposition. .

The court demanded all documents related to the process, including the voting notebooks, which the opposition insists on keeping secret to avoid reprisals against the participants by the government, as occurred 20 years ago during a signature collection to recall former President Hugo Chávez. (1999-2013).

Oswaldo Ramírez, political consultant and director of the ORC firm, told reporters that the government is probably looking for “a repeat of the primary. Now, with the help of the National Electoral Council and with qualified candidates.”

Thus, it seeks to “dominate or choose who you are going to compete with” and “generate that process of disincentive in the opposition voter,” he added.