PUD warns that the TSJ cannot prevent the publication of the election results

The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) stated that the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) cannot prevent the National Electoral Council (CNE) from publishing the disaggregated data of the presidential elections of July 28, whose result is being reviewed by the Court.

“The Electoral Chamber of the TSJ – which carries out the “validation” of the official result, which ratified Nicolás Maduro as president – can never be used to prevent the CNE from fulfilling fundamental stages of the electoral process, linked to the auditability of the results,” says a statement from the PUD, which assures that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the elections.

The opposition bloc reiterated that the electoral body has not published the disaggregated results, contrary to its own schedule, and that the audits after the votes “have been interrupted by the CNE without any justification.”

He also recalled that, after announcing Maduro’s victory, the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, publicly promised that “in the next few hours” he would deliver the data that “would support the bulletin” of results and that these would be published on the institution’s website and, “13 days later, none of these commitments have been fulfilled.”

The PUD insisted that it is the responsibility of the CNE to “guarantee the transparency and reliability” of the elections, and therefore considers it “unacceptable that the procedure be curtailed” to “place under the cloak of opacity alleged results that are neither audited nor disaggregated,” in reference to the process being carried out by the TSJ.

With this judicial “validation” requested by Maduro before the TSJ – an institution controlled by magistrates close to Chavismo – “an attempt is being made to create a way to certify results issued from non-existent or secret records,” the anti-Chavez group continues in its writing.

In addition, the PUD believes that the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ asked the former presidential candidates for “all materials” related to the voting “to deprive the participants of copies of the voting records, the only evidence they have and which guarantees the transparency of the process.”

The president of the TSJ, Caryslia Rodríguez, assured this Saturday that a “highly qualified and suitable staff” will work with the “highest technical standards” in the validation of the electoral result, although she did not give details in this regard, nor did she estimate the time that this process will take.

He reiterated, before the diplomatic corps accredited in the country, that the CNE went to the TSJ to “timely submit all the documents related to the process” and that the PUD did not present “any electoral material”, despite having published on a website “83.5%” of the voting records to support its claim of fraud.

The TSJ is working to “produce the final judgment” that “will have the character of res judicata” and “obligatory compliance,” added Rodríguez.

The Carter Center, which participated as an observer in the elections, has said that these elections cannot be considered democratic because they did not conform to established standards, a statement that the government sees as a show of support for the “coup” it says it is facing.